The Kitchen Witch

Baked Whole Rainbow Trout

The best food is the freshest food. There is nothing better than food out of your own garden or bought from a local farmer’s market. Some of us are hunters, spending long hours in the woods and field, in order to return home with the bounty of Artemis. Other of us prefer to fish the creeks and ponds and lakes. Yesterday morning, I had the opportunity to go trout fishing. It was a perfectly cold spring day. There was frost on the grass and we could see our breath. But the fish were jumping!

I must confess that I did not catch any fish at all. But my companion caught several small ones, lost what must have been some bombers and then brought in this beauty:

Now, that’s fresh!

A few hours later, it was cleaned and ready for the oven. I preheated the oven to 400 and prepped

a shallow pan with aluminum foil. First got out my herbs and cut my lemon and onion. For herbs, I used parsley, basil, and tarragon. I also used garlic powder, lemon pepper, sea salt and freshly ground pepper.

I put about a tablespoon of olive oil on the bottom of the foil and then placed the fish on the oil, turning it so it was oiled on both sides. Then I stuffed the fish with the lemon slices and onion and some of the herbs, perhaps a quarter teaspoon of each. I use tarragon leaf very sparingly – a little goes a long way. But that’s me. Maybe you like it better. And maybe you like a different mix of herbs – thyme, perhaps or rosemary – any mixture will do.

After stuffing the trout, sprinkle some more herbs on top and spritz with lemon juice. If you have white wine, add this to the packet but if not, just add a few tablespoons of water to keep the fish from drying out when cooking. I didn’t have white wine when I cooked this particular trout and I have to say I never missed it.

Then wrap it up and put it into the oven. It’ll take about a half an hour to cook. You want the flesh of the fish to be flakey when you touch it with a fork. The spinal column of the trout will come out easily after it is fully cooked but there will still be some little bones so be careful!

I like to serve trout with rice and a green vegetable like broccoli or fresh green beans.

Even if you’re not the kind of person to go fishing, you can go to your local fish market and usually find a whole fish like this. Trout is yummy good! And good for you.