Smoked Trout with Carmelized Apples and Walnuts

Today we purchased the following:

It's kind of icky-looking but Laura really wanted to eat smoked trout. And not just smoked trout, but smoked trout with caramelized apples and walnuts. Apples and walnuts I'm good with. But a dried-out fish with a billion bones and zombie eye sockets is a little out of my comfort zone. My rule is that I don't like my food to look at me when I'm preparing it or eating it. Lucky for Laura, this trout technically was not looking at me.

Count them. One billion bones.

At this point Laura "had to" go feed the baby so I was on my own. However having mis-spent some of my youth fishing with my folks, I had an idea about where to start extracting actual, edible meat. I sliced along the the back and just behind the gills with a very sharp knife and the fish folded open so I could get started. I gently lifted the tailbone out and scraped away the membrane attached to the rest of the bones. Then I peeled away the skin and anything that looked like dark meat. Dark fish meat is just too "fishy" for me. But some people like it. Ollie and Zizou loved it. Meow.

The really yummy meat is on the blue plate at the right. Halfway there.

The next step was to saute the apple slices in butter until they just got a little soft and a tidge brown. Then I sprinkled a couple of tablespoons of sugar over them and cooked them a minute or so longer so the sugar caramelized on the apple slices. 

Transferring the apples to a plate and using the same pan, I then did the same butter/sugar thing to the walnuts.
Then it was time to assemble. For the base I used a rye bread, thinly sliced, toasted, with crusts trimmed off. 

Smear the pieces of bread with a mixture of quark/horseradish.
Top with apple, fish pieces and a walnut.

Various stages of assembly.

David and I were not 100% sure the horseradish was perfect with the apples but couldn't come up with a better alternative. Laura really liked the horseradish. So don't go heavy on the horseradish. Overall we did agree with Laura. They were delicious.
p.s. Laura finished feeding the baby in time to devour these with us.

A recipe of sorts. More of a guideline, really.
2 tsp. horseradish
1/4 cup quark (or in Canada, maybe some cream cheese mixed with a dollop of yogurt to thin it out)
1 smoked trout, deboned
1 apple, sliced
fistful of whole walnuts (Laura thought pieces would have been better. David and I liked them whole)
butter (for caramelizing the apples and walnuts)
sugar ( 2 tbsp for the apples. 1 tbsp for the walnuts)

p.p.s. I'm still finding little tiny fish bones in the dishwasher.