Somewhere Over The Rainbow ...Trout

After reading the title of this post, are you all channeling Judy Garland singing "Somewhere Over The Rainbow ..."? Or perhaps humming a tribute to the late Hawaiian gentle giant, Iz Kamakawiwo'ole, with his version of the same song? Tonight, I hummed the latter version, as I tried to figure out how to prepare the main attraction: freshly caught, right off the hook, Rainbow Trout!

This isn't just any trout, folks. These beauties were reeled in by my son and hubbyman. Is this significant? Oh yeah. This was the first time .. the very first time ... my son went fishing. With his dad, no less. My guys came home bearing 8 trout that they gutted and cleaned themselves.

There was a fisherwoman at the lake that told my husband to cook the trout "whole style" rather than fillet them. Hmm. Fisherwoman assured him that after they were cooked, all we needed to do was just tug on the tail and fins, and all the bones would just slide right out. Uh huh. Note to self. Be wary of strange fisherwomen giving boning advice.

Anyway, after hearing this, I was faced with a dilema. I realized that I had not ever prepared a whole rainbow trout before. Oh I've made trout, but they were tidy boned fillets that were floured and fried. That's not an option, here, as my littlest trout can't do wheat. Sooooo ... what to do, what to do?

I remembered reading about how pioneers would grill whole trout with bacon and onions, so I figured that would be a good starting point. But how to do it? Ta Da! I thought about how my friend Marjie has prepared meals "en papillote", and thought the process would apply here using foil on the grill.

Here's what I came up with.

8 Whole Rainbow Trout, cleaned, gutted, heads removed
Olive Oil
Montreal Steak Seasoning
Lemon Pepper Seasoning
Garlic Salt
1 onion - sliced medium sliver style
1 lb Hickory Bacon
Foil - about 4 inches longer than the fish.

Heat grill to high. Rinse Trout and pat dry. Rub olive oil on outside of fish. Season liberally with all the seasonings. Take a small handful of onion slivers, and tuck them in the fish cavity. Using two slices of bacon, wrap up the fish and set it in the middle of the foil.
Fold the ends over the tail and ... what's the end called where the head used to be? Fold it over that end. Then gather up the remaining two sides and fold over and crimp together to form a closed bundle.
Place trout bundles on the grill, close the lid and cook on high (500 degrees F) for 25 minutes. Yep, that's 25 minutes. This is a whole fish with bacon. Cook away, my friends. Remove the bundles from the grill, and let sit for 5 minutes. Carefully open the pouches; the steam will be HOT.

All was going well up to this point. The fish looked and smelled divine. Doesn't this look goooood? The aroma was marvelous, simply marvelous. I snuck a nibble. Oh. Lordy. Mild, smokey, creamy ... it literally melted in my mouth. The bacon cooked up like a Virginia Style Ham. I think I made a yummy noise. I'm pretty sure I did.
Then (da da da duum) disappointment struck. Oh fisherwoman, your attention, please! The bones do not just pull out as you assured they would. Nope. In fact, the fish was so tender that when you pulled on the tail, it just popped right off. *SIGH*

I was not a happy camper. I was faced with 8 fishes that needed to be deboned by hand after cooking. Small bones. Lots of small bones. Plus, my fisher people were hungry. *Double sigh* I was not about to let my son's first catch become a flop, so I set out to de-bone the little buggers. Fifteen minutes later ...

I was glad I did. While the fish were no longer "pretty" in their tidy bundles, the aroma and flavor was "Oh My Gosh" outstanding. The hickory smoke from the bacon infused the fish, and the onion was surprisingly subtle. That Montreal Steak Seasoning should be called Montreal Everything Seasoning. I'm using that delightful little shaker more and more, and it performed brilliantly on the fish.

So, next time my fishermen bring home their bounty, I'll be ready with the bacon. And the Montreal Seasoning. And a boning knife. In the meantime, my friends, be wary of the shady bone-advice-giving fisherwoman.

I'm off to hum again. Somewhere over the rainbow ....

I've Got "Sole" ... Fillets, that is!

Growing up in Northwest Indiana, my family ate fresh fish for dinner just about every Friday. Lake perch, not to be confused with ocean perch, was the meal I most looked forward to. My mom lightly floured and pan fried those lovely, little, need-to-eat-5-or-6-to-make-a-meal, fresh water beauties. As a kid, I loved to watch those thin little fillets deliciously curl up the moment they hit the pan. Their delicate flavor appealed to my entire family, and you can bet that I belonged to the "clean plate club" when lake perch was served.

Now that I live in the Pacific Northwest, fresh lake perch is not available to me. The closest I can get to mild flavored fish is sole fillets, and although they don't compare to the yumminess of lake perch, they are well received by my family. My oldest daughter, who is an amazing, beautiful, brilliant young lady of 12, isn't a huge fish fan. She does, however, love sole fillets, and will gobble them up just as fast as I can serve them. They are hard to come by out here, but the fish monger recently stocked them, and so I, in turn, stocked up myself.

A couple of days ago, I read a great recipe from the always terrific Pam at Sidewalk Shoes. She prepared a wonderful chicken dish where she used tortilla chips as the coating for her chicken. Oooh, her chicken looked so crispy and delicious in her photos. So, tonight as I was thinking about how I could prepare these sole fillets, I wondered if potato chip crumbs would work. Years ago I had made a salmon fillet using shredded potatoes as the crust, but potatoes would over power the delicate sole fillets. Potato chips, though, might just be the ticket. We rarely have potato chips in the house, but as luck would have it, we just bought a bag and I nabbed the new bag and crushed a couple handfuls of them. This would work great with the crumbs left in the bottom of the bag, but hey, I needed those chips now. Also, fyi, I made this with Gluten Free Flour, but it could easily be made with regular flour. My recipe also outlines preparing this on the stove top, but I think if you drizzle the prepared fillets with butter, you could easily make it in the oven instead.

Ingredients:

About 1 cup of crushed fairly fine regular potato chips (I used Lays)
Two eggs, beaten
About 1 cup of Gluten Free All Purpose Flour (I used Bob's Red Mill)
Seasonings: Several shakes of: garlic salt, onion powder, season salt, and paprika
Sole fillets
Canola oil for frying
1 Tsp butter
Foil Lined baking pan

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 200. Once the oven is heated, turn off the heat. The purpose of the oven is to keep the fish warm while you prepare the rest of dinner. The fish keeps great in the oven, and doesn't dry out.

Set up an assembly line with four stations. For station one, put the flour in a pie plate. Mix the seasonings into the flour. Station two would be the beaten eggs in another pie plate, and station three is the potato chips in yet another pie plate. (Note: I find using pie plates easier than using zip lock bags because the sole fillets are so thin, they tend to fold on themselves in a bag.) Station four is a large plate to place the floured/chipped fillets on before frying.

Take your fillets and follow the stations as outlined above, first flouring the fillet, then dipping in the egg wash, then dipping in potato chips. You have to press the chips on as they don't really want to stick.

The frying stage takes place very quickly. In a large heavy skillet, add about 1/2 in of canola oil and one teaspoon of butter on medium high heat. When the oil starts to sizzle, place the fillets in the skillet. Make sure your oil is sizzle hot; hot oil = crispy fish whereas warm oil = oily fish. Blech! Anyway, when you place the fillets in the pan, they should on contact have a great sizzle going. The sizzle should occur the entire time they cook, so don't over crowd the pan. I fry about 4 fillets at a time. Fry on one side for about 2 minutes or until golden and crispy, then turn over and cook for 1 - 2 minutes, or until crispy. With a slotted spatula, remove fillets from the skillet at place on the baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining fillets, keeping the already cooked ones in the oven.

Holy Neptune, did these turn out great! These chips provided a wonderful crunchy yet light coating for the sole. The fillets remained wonderfully moist, too. All three of my little fishes, I mean children, had seconds as did hubby man. Tonight, everyone in my household belonged to the "clean plate club"!