Ode to a Smoked Trout Lyonnaise

Moving to Philly and being retired means I get to visit Valley Green as often as I want. So, last week I met Susan for lunch at Brunos and a post-prandial walk along Forbidden Drive. There, we encountered a battalion of rubber-booted fisherman standing in the stream and parade of pickups and cars following a small tanker truck along the path.

Yes folks, it was trout-stocking day on the Wissahickon.

Which got me remembering the time Lou caught some gorgeous trout in the Loyalsock River, which we brined and smoked on the Weber in the back yard at our cottage. Gotta’ get Lou back up to the mountains this summer, I thought.

Next day, meeting an old med school friend at Musette (yep, this retirement thing is working out just fine, thank you..), there on the menu was a Lyonnaise salad with green beans, topped with – you guessed it – smoked trout!

OMG – heaven on a plate.

Then yesterday, while arranging and stocking my new pantry, what did I find but a can of smoked trout from Trader Joes!

It was 3 pm and I hadn’t eaten lunch. I remembered the leftover baby kale and lettuce and a small amount of uncooked bacon in the fridge and knew exactly what I was going to do. Make Mark Bittman’s Salad Lyonnaise, topped with smoked trout.

OMG perfect.

I mean, really. A salad tossed in a warm vinagriette made from olive oil, bacon with its rendered fat, Dijon mustard, shallots (or in my case, garlic) and sherry wine vinegar, all topped with a poached egg? Only the French would think of that. And now I was going to gild that lily with smoked trout. Oh yeah, it was delish.

Eating my lunch, I started rooting around my brain for a poem to submit to my poetry workgroup that evening. Last minute poet, that’s me…

Luckily, this poem arose just in time.

Sometimes, the stars (and the trout) align.

Ode to a Smoked Trout Lyonnaise 

It's a brisk April morning on the old Wissahickon.
Rubber-booted fisherman are tossing their lines
into freshly stocked waters, where the trout are a-kickin',
their rainbow fins shimmer through the shadows of pines.

Which gets me to dreamin' of trout filets swimming
in applewood vapor, still fresh from the brine,
in a black kettle smoker, their plump muscles brimming
with sweet smoky candy-like flavor divine.

Now they greet me at the tabletop tossed with frisee
bathed in bacon-laced sherry and French mustard dressing
flanked by haricot vert, and atop it all lay
a perfect cooked egg like an early spring blessing. 

Margaret Polaneczky
April 20, 2023