't Smallert

Who's behind it

't Smallert is a trout farm in Emst, north of Apeldoorn. At the start of the twentieth century the site was a water mill; now the same spring water flows through the ponds. Sander Hertgers runs the business, which he took over from his father. He used to work as a chef. Slaughter and processing take place at the site in Vaassen; the farm in Emst is open to visitors.

The water and the farming

The water comes from the streams and springs of the protected Kroondomein. The farm is water-neutral: what flows in leaves the site equally clean or cleaner, because oxygen is added. The water board tests the quality regularly, and it's higher at the outflow than at the intake.

The eggs come from elsewhere and grow up at 't Smallert in cool, flowing water. A trout takes about a year to reach weight, between 500 grams and a kilo. The feed is put together with fellow farmers, based on fish meal and fish oil; it takes about 1.1 kilos of feed per kilo of fish.

After slaughter the fish is cleaned and filleted. Some goes fresh on ice and is then usually three to four days old. Some is first brined and then smoked over beech wood for about two hours, with only salt and smoke. Alongside trout there's salmon trout. The business carries the Erkend Veluws Streekproduct mark.

In your kitchen

Put the origin on the menu: Dutch trout from Kroondomein spring water, from a farm that returns the water cleaner than it receives it. Guests who pay attention to season and region pick up on that straight away.

The freshness gives you room to move. Skinless fillet suits raw or lightly dressed dishes, fillet with skin goes in the pan. The whole fish gives you bones for stock, so you get more out of one delivery. Put trout on the menu as your regular freshwater fish and you have a local product available all year.