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Asador Trout A La Vara

Francis Mallmann

Lesson time 10 min

No pots or pans are needed for this recipe. Join Francis on a hike in the wild outdoors, on the edge of a beautiful waterfall where he improvises a simple meal with only sticks and fish.

Students give this lesson an average rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars
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Preview

So this is a stick fish, a stick brook trout. This reminds me of the coast of Spain. In many little towns, they cook the anchovies like this and they’re much smaller than the trout, so they just fit them in a little piece of wood like this. And the men who are cooking them are cooking probably 40 at the same time. And then with their hands, they get the red coals and they don’t get burned and they move it and they put the coal where the fish needs it, all around. It’s incredible. I don’t know what they have in their hands. They have iron or something like that. I’m gonna prepare it in the stick to go to the fire. And I’m gonna open it here on the bone, on the side a little bit on both sides. We’ll place a stick here. See? And I use greenwood, green branches. Never dry wood because it would burn. So just get a tiny branch from the tree. So that one’s good. Let me get another one. To keep it open so it receives well the heat. Okay. Well, I tied the fish to the bone, to the stick, you see? So then I can cook it like this slowly. And I’m gonna put one more wire here at the very end now. Ah, you see, so this lady is happy like that. I’m gonna look for her like that. She’s perfectly open, you see? And then I will flip her. Very good. Very good heat for a trout. So the trout has been cooking on the stick for about 20 minutes. First on this side, on the skin side. And then I flipped it slowly. You just rotate it like this, you see. And God, it’s so delicious. So we’re gonna go to my board here to clean it. Cut the fins out. It’s very tender. It’s perfectly cooked. It’s still slightly attached to the bone. Clarified butter, I just paint it up. A little bit of sea salt. That’s it. Here we have our trout tied to little sticks like this, as you saw, these. So this one was here and that one was there. It’s very smoked because of the fire, it’s delicious. And as you see, it’s not raw, but it’s so wet here in the spine. It’s still slightly attached to the bone, and that’s what I love. Nothing more sad than an overcooked fish, remember that. And try, try, try, try, try until you reach that perfect temperature where the fish is slightly raw, but cooked.

About the Instructor

Francis Mallmann, the pioneer of open-fire cooking, is South America’s most famous chef and is known for his rustic open-fire cooking style in wild and remote locations. Join the James Beard award-winning author and Chef’s Table star as he brings you on a journey into his kitchen in the Patagonian wild where he teaches you how to master the grill and his Argentine-style barbecue.