One of my favorite activities is fly fishing in the Carpathian mountains for trout. There’s plenty of ways to cook this tasty fish, but one of my favorites is to deep fry it and make rainbow trout tacos.
Being from California I’m a big fan of the Baja style fish taco. And now that I live in Europe, I still get cravings. What to do? Well, I’ll make them at home! You can use plenty of fish for fish tacos, and in this recipe I’m going to use delicious rainbow trout.
Normally I bake Carpathian trout under sour cream since that is the popular way to do it where I live. However since trout is so versatile you can grill it, stuff it, or even use leftovers for an easy and spreadable trout salad.
Do I Need To Fillet An Entire Trout?
If you can find trout fillets at your local fishmonger than you can absolutely buy them for this recipe. Oftentimes you will have to buy trout whole, but it is very easy to fillet a trout…which you should learn if you go catch them yourself.
Many supermarkets these days have frozen trout fillets already prepared, and since we don’t care about the whole fish look go ahead and get those to save time in this recipe.
How To Make Fried Rainbow Trout Tacos
Since these are Baja style fish tacos you can use flour tortillas. Other than that, most of the ingredients are simple things you probably already have, or things easy to get at your grocery store. I top these trout tacos with some homemade sour cherry pickled cabbage, but you can leave that ingredient out if you like.
Ingredients
- 1 kg Rainbow Trout – because rainbow trout can be all different sizes, it’s best to go by weight. My two trout, after gutting and filleting went from 1 kg down to 1/2 kg, or a little more than a pound. So if you are buying frozen trout meat then aim for 500 grams total weight.
- 8 Flour Tortillas – street style, so quite small
- 1 small White Onion – chopped
- Pickled Cabbage – optional
- Cilantro – to taste
- 2 cups Flour
- 1 tbsp Paprika
- 1 tbsp Garlic Powder
- 2 tsp Salt
- Oil – for frying
- Condiments & Sauces – as desired
The first thing to do if you have whole fish is to fillet it. Use tweezers to remove the pin bones, and peel off the skin. Cut the trout meat into 1-2 bite pieces.
In another bowl add the flour, paprika, garlic powder, and salt. Whisk everything together, then trickle in roughly 2 cups of water (1:1 ratio of flour to water) until you have a nice batter. Since trout is a fatty fish we are using a pretty thick batter. If you use a more flaky whitefish like cod you can make beer battered fish tacos with the best beer batter ever.
Set up a frying station with a pot of oil, your plate of fish, and the bowl of batter.
Add the trout pieces to the batter and pull them out one by one to fry in the very hot oil. They only take a minute or two to be crispy golden brown. Only fry 4-5 pieces at a time, or more if you use a large pot. You don’t want to crowd the pot or all the trout pieces will stick together.
Place all the fried trout pieces on a paper towel lined plate so they can get rid of their excess oil. Once all the trout is done frying you can start on making the tacos.
Think of this step as a guide, since you don’t have to build your rainbow trout tacos the same way. I first heat up the tortillas on an open flame. Then into the middle of the tortilla I add pieces of trout, drizzle with some garlic crema, top with avocado slices and pickled cabbage, then sprinkle over white onion and cilantro. I also add a some of my homemade carolina reaper hot sauce, because it goes great with fish, and makes everything better (opinion of course).
I actually made these rainbow trout tacos for an al fresco dinner with friends since I made a cool patio table with some Mexican style broken tiles. Unfortunately the day was completely rained out so we had to eat inside. Oh, well…another day to make some delicious Mexican food!
Rainbow Trout Tacos
Equipment
- 1 Pot for frying
Ingredients
- 1 kg Rainbow Trout because rainbow trout can be all different sizes it's best to go by weight. My two trout, after gutting and filleting went from 1 kg down to 1/2 kg, or a little more than a pound. So if you are buying frozen trout meat then aim for 500 grams total weight.
- 8 Flour Tortillas street style so quite small
- 1 small White Onion chopped
- 1 Avocado sliced
- Pickled Cabbage optional
- Cilantro to taste
- 2 cups Flour
- 1 tbsp Paprika
- 1 tbsp Garlic Powder
- 2 tsp Salt
- Oil for frying
- Condiments & Sauces as desired
Instructions
- If you bought whole fish then the first step is to fillet them. Cut the fillets from the bones, use tweezers to remove the pin bones, then peel off the skin. Cut fish into 1-2 bite size pieces.
- In a bowl whisk together the flour, salt, garlic powder, and paprika. Trickle in 2 cups of water while whisking until you have a nice slurry batter.
- Set a pot of oil on high heat and bring up to temperature. Add the fish pieces to the batter and make sure they all get fully coated.
- Use tongs to move a piece of fish from the batter to the pot. Don't fry too many pieces at once so as not to crowd the pot. Cook for 1-2 minutes, then remove from the oil to a paper towel lined plate. Continue until all fish has been fried.
- Build your tacos by heating up the tortillas on an open flame. Lay down some pieces of fried trout, then top with your sauces, onion, herbs etc… Feel free to leave stuff out or add your own favorite ingredients.
The recipe is good but my god that knife is gorgeous! Can you please let me know where it’s from and if you don’t mind letting me know how much it costs?
Hi Beth,
I bought that knife in Japan at a shop called Kamata Hakensha in Tokyo. It’s a bit pricey – I think I paid about $400 for it, but that was nearly 5 years ago so I’m not sure what they cost now.