Today, the vast majority of Lanzarote families have nougat at home during the Christmas holidays, but it is a custom that did not consolidate in Lanzarote until well into the 20th century.
“When I was a child there were no nougats. Before there were trout, some roscos and some bizcochón”, explains Hortensia Navarro to La Voz, author of two volumes of traditional recipes entitled "Las Recetas de la Abuela Hortensia”.
At 82 years old, Navarro continues to make Christmas trout for the whole family and, at the end of this article, shares some tips for its preparation with the readers of La Voz.
Unlike the relatively recent arrival of nougat, the origin of trout, traditionally made of sweet potato or chickpeas in Lanzarote, is lost in the remote past of the islands. The first document that attests to its existence dates from 1736, a year after the last eruption of Timanfaya.
The document in question is a book of expenses of the Convent of Nuestra Señora de Consolación, in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. In it, there is a record of the payment of “ninety-four reales for two fountains of sweets for the general and beneficiary; and other sweets such as trout, sweet and dry donuts, covered biscuits and rose honeycomb for the devotees”.
Trout, in its multiple traditional and modern variants, throughout the eight Canary Islands, is a unique product of the archipelago.
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The word trout as a Christmas sweet
Some experts have launched the hypothesis, still not conclusive, that the use of this word to name a sweet could have Portuguese origin, a language in which the word ‘trouxa’ is used for some sweets such as trouxa de-ovos, a typical sweet from the Portuguese country, although different.
In peninsular Spain, this Christmas sweet is so unknown that the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy of Language (DRAE) does not include any meaning in this regard for the word trout, which it defines as "freshwater fish" or "astute person" and even includes the meaning of "face" in Chile and "small haberdashery" in Central America.
However, the best reporter of the court during the 19th century, the distinguished Gran Canaria native Benito Pérez Galdós, defines it in his work as ‘bartolillo’. Unequivocal sign of the work of the illustrious writer to build bridges between Madrid and the islands. Bartolillo is a typical Madrid dessert that is also a kind of dumpling, but filled with custard.
And of course, the Historical Dictionary of Spanish of the Canary Islands defines it accurately: “fried dumpling, semicircular in shape. It is filled with a paste made of sweet potato or angel hair and other ingredients, such as almonds, sugar, etc.”.
How to prepare sweet potato trout and Hortensia Navarro's advice
The author of Las Recetas de la abuela Hortensia shares with the readers of La Voz her way of preparing them. As for the quantities, we propose measures for the preparation of 25 trout.
Navarro explains that nowadays she uses the typical dumpling wrappers, already prepared, but when she was a child she prepared the dough with her sisters.
If you want to prepare your own dough, for 25 wrappers you will need 1 glass of dry white wine (200 ml), 1 glass of sunflower or mild olive oil (200 ml) and about 400-450 g of wheat flour.
To prepare the dough, pour the wine, oil and flour into a bowl, mix the ingredients and knead them until you get a homogeneous dough. Cover it with a cloth and let it rest for half an hour.
To get the wrappers, sprinkle a little flour on a flat surface, and roll out the dough with a rolling pin until it is as thin as possible. Once smooth, cut circles with a pastry cutter or with a cup between 10 and 11 centimeters in diameter.
For the filling you will need half a kilo of sweet potato, matalahúva (anise in plant), 100 grams of sugar, the zest of a lemon, 20 grams of almonds, a pinch of cinnamon and water.
First, Navarro shares, “you have to peel and wash the sweet potatoes to parboil them with salt and water in a pot together with a packet or two of matalahúva”.
“When the sweet potato is parboiled, you take it out. I always pass it through the food mill”, she shares. Then “I make a syrup with water and sugar with a lemon peel until it is thick”.
Back in the pot to briefly brown the mixture, “the mashed sweet potato, the syrup and a little ground cinnamon, a little anise and some previously fried and mashed almonds are mixed together”.
Then “it is put in the wrappers and allowed to cool”. To close them, just place a spoonful of filling in the center of each circle and lightly moisten the edge so that when folded they close well. With a fork, the sealing is completed.
To fry them, the most common thing is to put abundant sunflower or mild olive oil in a deep frying pan with the skin of a lemon.
When the oil is very hot, remove the lemon peel and fry the trout in small quantities. Once cold, sprinkle with icing sugar.
