How to Cook Whole Trout

"Guess what, I have a surprise for you!"

says the Airman in uniform coming through the door and holding his gym bag.

"Um...a cat brother for Trink?"

Nope. He pulls out a ziploc bag with two whole, fresh trout.

"...where did you get those?"

"Don't you worry about that..."

 

Medium length story made short, someone he works with is really into fishing and apparently caught enough trout to share. My husband was quick to volunteer his wife as someone interested in cooking whole fishes (and he was right).

As part of our life goals, when we grow up JoJo and I have decided want to be Phil and Kay Robertson (Duck Dynasty anyone? We are addicts!). Kay is adorable and can cook anything and Phil is a sardonic, bearded, redneck genius. They have great traditional values and they have been married over 50 years and are completely in love. They are also hysterically funny. Sound like good role models to me!

Cooking fresh fishes seems like a good place to get some more practice for moving toward that goal. I do cook fish pretty much weekly, but typically it is salmon and never does it ever have eyes and fins and all that. Thankfully the guy who gave them to him already gutted them out, so I don't have to worry about that part.

I have been browsing for trouty recipes; I slightly tweaked this recipe I found here. Instead of pan cooking, I baked mine (because I didn't have a pan big enough to fit 2 fish). I also added parsley and oregano.

Anyway:

 

Step 1: Well...I guess you'd have to either buy or catch your own trout and possibly gut it, but I managed to skip that step. (Pretty sure these are Brook Trout and not Rainbow, by the way)

 

Step 2: you might could want to take some photos with your raw trout. At least I wanted to. Bonus points for singing Gollum-like songs. Did I mention "I am different than most women"?

 

Step 3: Heat your oven to 350 and put some olive oil in your pan.

Step 4: Slice lemons thin and stick them inside the fish (which has been slit open due to the gutting and all that). Also insert about 3 cloves of garlic, minced. I also made a mixtue of salt, pepper, oregano and parsley and rubbed that on the inside of the fish. Just a little pinch of each, along with a little more olive oil.

Step 5: Bake in the oven for about 20-25 minutes (all depends on the size of your fish. The skin should get slightly crispy and the fish should be slightly flakey).

 

Step 6: ENJOY! So fresh and tasty! (Now, if you are wondering how you go about EATING it, like I was, this link here might be helpful!) We served ours up with some brown rice, homemade bread and asparagus.

I hope some of you get a chance to try it! This was our first experience with a fish not purchased in a store (one more step furthering us from being "yuppies"). Definitely very different from our usual salmon preference, but quite delicious nonetheless!