Baked trout with lemon butter sauce

Sorry, no photo with this one.  It's not often that we have trout at home, but the fishmonger had a couple of nice looking ones and I thought we might as well. 

I was going to have a go at the much-forgotten trout with almonds - a classic from some years ago.  The problem with classics is they get made badly and soon fall out of favour.  However, a good trout fried and served with lots of butter and good quality almonds (blanched and sliced by hand - not those tasteless flakes from little packets) fried in the butter is excellent.  But then I realised I didn't have any almonds, so this dish was born. Pretty fine it was too - there's something about trout and butter I think...

Trout with lemon butter sauce
2 trout, cleaned, fins and gills removed
3 oz butter
1 large shallot, thinly sliced
1 small lemon, thinly sliced
2 small sprigs rosemary
2 bay leaves
White wine - a glass or so
Sea salt and black pepper

Preheat the oven to 200°C.
Begin by softening the sliced shallot in a little of the butter.  Tip this into a roasting tin just big enough to take both trout.  Now turn the heat up under the pan and add a dot more butter.  Quickly caremelise about half of the lemon slices in the foaming butter.  Add to the shallots.  Spread this mixture over the base of the tin.
Place the rosemary on the shallot and lemon mix and put the trout on top.  Put a couple of lemon slices, a dot of butter and a bay leaf inside the cavity of each tout and season the cavity well.
Splash the white wine over - you need enough wine to cover the base of the tin to a depth of 3-5mm - enough so that it doesn't burn.  Dot most of the butter over the top, leaving a good knob for later.  Season well.  Cover the tin with foil and bake for 15 minutes.  Remove the foil and put back in the oven for a futher 5 minutes.

Remove from the oven, gently remove the trout onto a board and loosley cover with the foil to keep warm.  Strain the liquid through a seive into a small pan (don't throw the solids away yet).  Bring to a rapid boil and reduce down a little.  Pick out the rosemary and discard.  Stir in the remaining butter into the boiling sauce. 

Serve the trout with some of the lemon and shallot mixture and pour over the lemon butter sauce.
Serve with something crispy - rosemary roast potatoes? - and something green - watercress?  Peas?

tags: fish  trout  

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