Vaucluse Trout with a Variation of Carrots
Chef Vivien Rouleaud won the Acqua Panna award for Connection in Gastronomy at the S.Pellegrino Young Chef North West Europe regional final.
“It was while going fishing on the banks of the Sorgue that I realised that wild carrots were omnipresent on the rivers, it then seemed logical to me to bring them together in this recipe,”
Carrots: 300 g (carotte des sables)
Beurre noisette: 100 g
Yellow baby carrots: 6
Red baby carrots: 6
Oranges: 3
Caster sugar: 150 g
Savagnin vinegar
Cress: 200 g
Cream: 10 cl
Fish stock: 10 cl
Trout: 240 g (2 fillets approx 120g each)
Vivien Rouleaud shares his recipe for a simple land and river dish championing ultra-local ingredients, which he discovered shortly after his recent move to Vaucluse in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, in southeast France.
The dish unites fresh trout from the Sorgue river - which flows past Rouleaud's restaurant in the picturesque waterside town of L'Isle-Sur-la-Sorgue - with local carrots, grown less than 30km away.
“It was while going fishing on the banks of the Sorgue that I realised that wild carrots were omnipresent on the rivers, it then seemed logical to me to bring them together in this recipe,” the young French chef explains.
Rouleaud encourages home cooks to try his creation at home as it’s easy to make, inexpensive, full of flavour, visually interesting, and allows the ingredients, which can be adapted to products found local to wherever you are, to shine.
Discover how to make Rouleaud's recipe in the step-by-step guide below.
Carrot puree
Cook the carrots with a bay leaf then blend with the clarified butter.
Carrot Top
Slice the baby red carrots, blanch, and then roast in a pan.
Yellow carrots:
Cook the Grand Marnier with a little honey until it caramelises, deglaze with orange juice, then cook the yellow carrots in it until they are glazed.
Carrot crystalline:
Slice the carrots into 1.5mm slices on a mandolin, then place in a 25% syrup solution for 12 minutes. Then spread them out on a silicone baking sheet and dry in the oven at 60 °.
Candied Orange Condiment:
Blanch the sliced oranges 3 times, then cook them in syrup and mix with orange juice.
Then mix them adding Savagnin vinegar and Timut pepper.
Cebette condiment:
Blanch the carrot tops then mix them into the juice. Whip this juice in cebette oil.
The sauce:
Cream the fish stock, then mix with the watercress and a little butter to make a nice emulsion.
Trout:
Cut a 120g rectangle of trout from the centre of the fillet, score the skin then cook it skin-side down. Add a piece of butter, turn the fish to baste it before removing it from the heat, and leave it to finish cooking on its own.
The final dish.