Once I had arrived at the frozen river, I realized that I would definently not be finding any naturally occuring holes in the surface ice. For some reason, I had not accounted for that prior, likely since I am not experienced with the cold nor it's effects. I didn't bring an ice auger, so in a moment of panic, not wanting to have to redo this entire expedition, I threw a big rock at the ice. Luckily for me, it created a divot which I was able to puncture with a large stick I found. I then sat down, and lowered my line into the hole. Hopefully, I thought, a bite would come quick, so I wouldn't have to sit out here very long. It did not. It took almost thirty minutes, but luckily, it really wasn't anything even close to a hard battle, as the eastern fur-bearing trout is, like most Oncotomentosus species, a pretty sluggish fish. Upon pulling it out of the frigid water, it began to writhe weakly and sluggishly. After putting the specimen on ice (Which frankly I doubt was needed in these temperatures), I decided that I would stay a little longer to write some notes on the species in the wild, watching them through the hole. The eastern fur-bearing trout is, as known before, a slow, lazy fish. They are not particularly quick, and spend most of their time sleepily hovering in the water column, typically in the middle or slightly close to the surface. Every now and then, an individual will swim towards some form of prey, typically an ice shrimp, blue worm, teal worm, or a smaller fish, although not a quick pace, and eat it, not bothering to return back to where it was before. This is sort of all they do. I watched them for a good thirty minutes (spending a total of an hour and a half in that bloody waste of a valley), and they didn't do anything else. Anyway, let's get to the actually good part, the recipe! First, take your fur-bearing trout from the ice. If you bought it at a fish market, please tell me which one because I am NOT going to get another one. Then, lay it on your cutting board. Get some kitchen shears (or scissors, your pick) and a filleting knife (make sure it's sharp!). Then, gut your fish. Following the gutting, dress it. it's important to say that the "fur" of the fur bearing trout is actually made up of filamentous extrusions on the scales, so dressing the fish will also remove the fur. Do this as follows. First, cut off the dorsal fin and posterior fin with the shears, and use your knife cut the area where the posterior fin was up to the vertebra (tap the vertebrae with tip of the knife, not the bottom!). Gently pull to remove the bones. Then, cut along the base of the gills with your knife, and cut until they detach. Optionally, remove the head (I did this). Then, open up your fish (if it's not split down the middle, you forgot to gut it), and insert your knife at the bottom of the ribs, where they meet the spine, and gently press the knife upwards to preserve the meat. Do this on both sides, for obvious reasons, and use the shears to cut off the ribs which are too close to the spine for the knife to get. Then, use the shears to cut both ends of the backbone, first at the head, then at the end of the tail. Use the knife to carefully separate the top of the spine. If the fish is longer than 45 centimeters (mine was 40 and a half), then remove the pin bones. Final step is to remove the head, and now, you can cook your fish. First, salt both the skin and meat sides, and put it in the fridge for 30 minutes. After, pat it dry and cover both sides in flour, following which set up your pan and make sure there's enough butter to baste your fish. Then, smash some garlic and shallots, and add them to the butter, along with some rosemary, some aeglos (Ulex borealis, aka snowthorn, snow furze, or elf's furze, if you do not have any (it grows alongside the riverbanks of frozen rivers that fur-bearing trout inhabit), you can also use thyme), and a drizzle of olive oil. Start the heat, insert the fish, skin side on the pan, and then press it with a spatula for about 30 seconds so it lays flat. Following this, baste the meat side using the butter for about 4 minutes before flipping it and letting it fry until golden brown. When it's done, transfer it to a plate (without the butter of course), and add parsley, chopped & boiled snow cucumber (Gigalathyrus borealis, green beans also work for those who don't have snow cucumber at their local market), and lemon juice. Your fur-bearing trout is now complete and ready to serve. Also I made a side-blog on Tumblr for this new project and I might do the funny lore drops there oooooh (yeah this is a plug)
