Trout with Almonds : Truite aux Amandes : Lesson 8 : Part 1 : LCB at Home

Simple enough: it's pan fried trout. It's best to get 6 small, equal sized ones, to serve 6 people. Or, do as I did ... 3 medium small, 1 medium and a large trout; makes it very complicated to cook them. The thing being that the store had already sold all the equal-sized small ones to people who arrived before lunch - people who know the score when it comes to buying live trout. Next time I'm (maybe) getting up at 6 A.M. to go shopping?

Other than the complication of cooking fishes of three distinct sizes there were two little errors: late in the preparation of this dish there's butter to be melted and toasted gently with slivered almonds - my approach the first time 'round turned out to be ... scorching the butter until black; 'twas not a good idea. The second attempt, in another frying pan, got the butter melted but I forgot to sauté the almonds in it; so put them on top raw anyway. Turned out alright.

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Truite aux Amandes : Trout with Almonds

Serves: 6

Ingredients

• 6 trout, whole, pan sized, cleaned (remove heads if you like - I did)
  
  
• salt
• pepper
• flour
• 2 T butter, each time
• 1 T olive oil, each time
  
  
• 1/4 C butter
• slivered almonds

Procedure

1. Catch, kill and clean the trout - behead it so it will fit in the pan
   
2. Cook in two batches, or three if the pan is real small
   
3. 2T butter and 1 of oil into the pan - medium heat
   
4. salt and pepper the insides of the fish, and outside too
   
5. dredge with four, shale off excess (if any)
   
6. fry, on one side, 5 minutes for small, 7 for medium, 9 for large
• until the flesh inside is certainly turned opaque
7. Fry the other side for a similar amount of time
   
• until the flesh is tender
  
8. Set aside, covered with foil, in a low oven, while you do the other batch/es
   
9. Dump the oil and butter
   
10. Put in new oil and butter, heat and do the 2nd batch of fish (and a 3rd if you have to)
11. Dump the last oil and butter and put a 1/4 C of new butter into the pan
    
12. medium heat until bubbly
    
13. add the almond slivers (I forgot to)
    
14. cook until golden brown (the almonds) and nutty smelling (the butter) - not burnt;
    
15. remove from heat
    
16. Plate the fish - quickly
    
17. Pour the butter/almonds over the fish

Done

Notes

1. No notes - this thing is really very straightforward.
2. Maybe one note... since the fish go on standby in the oven you don't have to overcook them in the frying pan - - they'll "finish" in the warming oven.

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