Trout tartlet recipe

This recipe is courtesy of Cara Cummings, who supplied a fabulous picnic spread based on smoked and fresh trout for the Culinary Cruising feature in the Vol 37.5 October-November Club Marine Magazine.

Cara regularly cooks up a seafood storm on her ‘Cooking with Cara’ segment on Talking Fishing, a live weekly TV show that airs on C31 Melbourne. She says redfin is equally tasty in this recipe, so feel free to swap it out if that’s what you’ve caught – you can also buy locally sourced fish from a trusted fishmonger, they’ll usually offer smoked trout as well.

Makes 12

• 200g trout (fresh or hot-smoked)
• 3 roasted baby beets, chopped
• Small handful chopped fresh dill
• ½ cup goat’s cheese
• ¼ cup parmesan, grated
• 1 tsp capers
• 3 sheets puff pastry
• 6 free-range eggs
• 1⁄3 cup cream
• Pinch of salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease a non-stick muffin tray with a brush of olive oil or line with baking paper.

Cut disks of pastry using a 10cm circle cutter or use a small bowl as a template. Press the pastry disks into the muffin well, ensuring there are no air gaps.

Remove the skin and bones from the trout and chop into 2 to 3cm pieces.

Whisk together in a clean bowl the eggs, cream, parmesan, salt and pepper to create the egg mix.

Layer the tarts starting with ½ tablespoon of egg mix in the base, then fill with the trout, beetroot, dill, capers and crumble the goat’s cheese over the top. Top with the remaining egg mix so that all the tarts are ¾ filled.

Cook in the pre-heated oven for 30 minutes, or until egg mix is set when pierced with a skewer.