Here Fishy Fishy...Canning Yukon Lake Trout

It’s the last day of summer vacation before it’s back to school. It’s been a spectacular summer. The weather was gorgeous, well, after it decided to stop snowing in May! It was the kind of summer that comes along once every 10 years as far as being consistently hot and sunny. The other bonus is that the forest fire smoke, which I usually associate with hot weather, was minimal. I feel so lucky to have had the chance to spend a lot of time outdoors: walking the dog, camping, going to the lake, fishing, canoeing, hiking, road tripping, etc. It’s been great. I feel refreshed and ready to start another year.

The reflection on Mayo Lake was crystal clear!

Part of that outdoor time included a recent fishing trip to Mayo Lake with my friend, Amberley and my hubby. We camped on Gull Island for 5 days. Again, the weather was great as we set out to catch some trout. We love our lake trout! We caught 10 fish total, which were all decent in size. Still searching for that elusive 40 pounder though... We weren’t sure what we were going to do with them. We love to eat lake trout fresh but find that it just isn’t the same if it’s been frozen. I usually smoke our trout, which is delicious, but this year I thought I would preserve it in jars instead so that I could have a ethical and sustainable alternative to buying canned tuna or salmon. As well, canned trout is a little more practical for every day consumption than smoked trout, which is more of a treat for special occasions.

A nice trout for eating!

I am totally new to canning/jarring. I’ve jarred some jelly before but that’s the extent of it. In anticipation of canning/jarring something this year, I picked up a copy of the Complete Book of Home Preserving put out by Bernardin (the jar company). I already have a canning kit (big pot, rack, funnels, magnetic for putting on lids, etc.), which has gone mostly unused since I bought it a couple years ago. The thing with canning fish, however, is that because it is low in acidity and can easily spoil, it needs to be canned in a pressure cooker. Pressure cookers scare me! Don’t people make bombs with these things?! Anyways, I was a little hesitant but I bought one. People have been using these things for over a hundred years after all. 

My new pressure cooker,

After perusing several recipes in books and online, I decided to go with the recipe on page 394 of the Bernardin book. I wanted to keep the recipe simple so that the wonderful flavour of the fish would not be lost in the seasoning. In this recipe, the fish is simply brined in a salt water solution for an hour, packed into jars, and then pressure cooked for the allotted time. Of course, as Amberley and I are both novices, there was a lot of second guessing and questions. All I can say is, what on earth did people do before Google and YouTube?! The other thing with using a pressure cooker, is if you suspect that you’re doing something wrong, you can’t just lift the lid and take a peek!

Page 394- Canning fish

In any case, the fish turned out! Rich, tender, flavourful. I’m so pleased we went this route. I can’t wait to explore some recipes that call for canned tuna or salmon and use this gorgeous canned trout. 

Fish cut up and soaking in brine.

Jars waiting to be filled.

Stuffing the jars.

Beautiful looking fish!

Pressure cooker is full.

The end result!

This past weekend was Discovery Days, a territorial holiday, which celebrates the discovery of gold in the Klondike. One of the events as part of these celebrations was the Horticultural Exhibition, which celebrates local food production. Now obviously my garden was not going to produce any entries. However, I noticed that one of the categories was Canned Goods & Preserves- Meat & Fish. I thought, what the heck, I’ll take down a jar. As fate would have it, our canned trout won first place! Okay, it was the only entry but I’ll take it. I’ve been wearing my ribbon around every since... It truly is award winning fish!

First Place ribbon!

I think canning might be addictive. When I went down to the Horticultural Exhibition to retrieve my trout, a guy offered me some cucumbers. What did I do? I came home and made pickles. Then as I was making pickles and had some pickling solution leftover so I thought I’d make some pickled carrots. Today I whipped up some salsa and at some point this week, I’m going to get canning up some tomatoes. It’s harvest time in the Klondike! Love it! Happy Discovery Day!