Trout in Sweet and Sour Tomato Sauce

Preparing the fish

1. It is best to cook portion-sized trout with this sauce. Still, a steak or a piece of large fish cooked by this recipe may turn out just as good. And fish in a sweet and sour sauce turns out excellent.

2. Clean and gut the trout. Scale the fish.

   

   Rinse the fish under running water to wash off any remaining scales. With sharp scissors, cut the rib bones near the backbone and cut out as much of the backbone as possible, then try to pick out all the rib bones with a knife. What remains is just the fish fillet on the skin, with the tail sticking out.

3. Rub the fish with spices. Mix all the spices in equal parts and grind them in a mortar. You need about 1 tbsp of the finished mix, and half of it should be salt. Rub the spice mix over the whole inside cavity of the trout and a little over the skin. You should be left with a little under 1 tsp of spices, which is needed for the sauce. Leave the fish for 20-30 mins to take the salt.

   

Frying the fish with onion

1. Fry the trout in oil with garlic. In a deep frying pan over medium heat, heat the olive oil and fry a peeled garlic clove, crushed with the flat of a knife. As soon as the garlic turns light brown, remove it from the oil and throw it away. The garlic’s job is to flavor the olive oil.

   Put the fish into the hot oil and fry it, turning often, on each side in turn for 15 mins, until golden brown.

   

2. Stew the onion with the fish. While the fish is frying, peel the onion and cut it into thin strips. Put the onion into the boiling oil in the pan, on both sides of the fish. Reduce the heat to just below medium, cover the pan with a lid and stew the onion with the fish for 10 mins.

   

3. As soon as the onion is soft, sprinkle everything with the remaining spices, add sugar to taste and pour in the dry white wine. Stew the fish and onion under the lid for 10 mins.

Stewing the trout in tomatoes

1. Turn the fish over in the pan and immediately add a full jar of tomato pulp, which is sold in almost every shop now. It usually holds 400 g of tomatoes. In season, you can scald 500 g of ripe fresh tomatoes with boiling water, remove the skin and seeds, and finely chop the pulp. That is even better.

   

2. Carefully mix the tomatoes with the onion using a fork or spatula so you don’t damage the fish. Stew the trout in the tomato sauce under the lid over the same heat for at least 30 mins. Watch that all the moisture doesn’t evaporate, otherwise the fish will burn. If needed, add a little water, or better, wine. By the end of cooking the sauce should be quite thick and not run off the fish.

   

Serving

1. Put the trout with its sauce on a plate, spread the thick sauce over the fish in a layer and serve right away, while the fish in sweet and sour sauce is hot.

   

   Fish in a sweet and sour tomato sauce goes well with a side of boiled potatoes, if you like.