Trout -- Quick, Easy and Clean!

Trout and hamburgers are my go-to choices when we eat out on road trips because I can always count on them to taste great. What's more, most trout in restaurants or in the grocery store are farmed rainbow trout, which the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch program says are always a "Best Choice" pick. And they're so easy to cook!

My grocery store sells whole trout and filets them for me in minutes. I find that one large trout serves 2 people (plus, 2 fillets fit perfectly in my 12-inch skillet).

You'll need a few pieces of equipment--one special and one probably improvised:

 --A pair of fish tweezers, which I've posted about before, come in handy to remove the few remaining bones that your fish guy will inevitably leave in. I find fish tweezers very cool!

--You'll need to find a cover for your large skillet. I use a round pizza pan, but you may have a large lid from a stock pot or spaghetti pot. Or, simply use a piece of foil. Covering the fish allows it to cook quickly and, maybe more importantly, keeps you from having to clean a bunch of greasiness from your stovetop.


Here's my fool-proof and quick method for cooking trout:

1. Pour a bit of oil in a pan heated to medium high and lay the trout in the pan skin-side-down.

2. Cover the pan and let the fish cook for about 4 minutes.

3. The trout is done when it flakes easily after you poke it with a fork or the tip of a knife and when the flesh is no longer shiny and glistening (cooking sites call this stage opaque--meaning that the flesh is not see-through)

4. Squeeze a bit of fresh lemon juice and add salt and pepper on each piece, and use a metal spatula to serve the fish onto each person's plate,

I don't eat the skin (of any fish actually) because I never cook it to the stage where it's crispy enough to be delectable and because for some fish, like salmon or halibut, I fear the mercury that resides in the fatty portions of the fish.  The topic of eating fish skin is debatable--scroll through this Serious Eats post for the pros and cons of eating fish skin!


With the trout, we had roasted potatoes with a bunch of chopped scallions tossed in after roasting (toss the potatoes in oil, salt and pepper and roast at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes, turning them once) and a salad with my typical melange of this-and-that, including leftover cooked mushrooms, 1/2 of a left-over avocado, slices of red onions, a bit of blue cheese and some toasted walnuts.

Halibut in the Microwave

Like everyone else, I take the microwave for granted. Sure, I use it to warm my soy milk for coffee every day, cook my oatmeal in the winter, heat leftovers for lunch or dinner and have the occasional cup of tea or bag of popcorn. But by-and-large, I think cooking in the microwave is somehow, how I shall put it . . . not really cooking.  Maybe my microwave repertoire is just too limited?

However, I do think fish cooked in the microwave is fantastic!

Mostly I just pan fry salmon and other fish and use my snazzy grill pan for shrimp. But when I want to poach salmon or halibut, or just cook any fish exactly right, the microwave is perfect. About 1 ½ minutes on each side does the trick—sometimes that is even too long if the fillets are smallish. I let it rest for another minute or two. And the fish comes out perfectly flaky and done just to the point of tenderness.

A number of years ago I had some halibut cooked this way at the grocery store tasting station, cooked with a ginger-garlic-soy sauce marinade. That’s one of my favorite ways to cook halibut now. Since it’s just the two of us, buying halibut seems like a reasonable treat when it’s fresh and in season.

For two 7 oz. fillets:

In a glass baking pan, mix a 2 to 3 inch piece of fresh ginger with your microplane grater (you should really get one—they’re wonderful for zesting citrus too). Add two medium cloves of garlic (pressed with your garlic press), about ¼ cup of soy sauce and olive oil, and a few shakes of sesame oil. Turn the fish to coat and let it sit for an hour or so (or ½ hour if that’s all the time you have).

Cover the dish and microwave for 1 ½ minutes. Turn the fish and microwave on the other side. Test it with a fork to see if the fish flakes perfectly. If not, zap for another 30 seconds to one minute. To serve, spoon the marinade over the top if you would like. Last night we had roasted sweet potatoes, broccoli and a spinach salad with our halibut.