Trout with asparagus and beans

Tonight started with such promise: the nights are longer and the sun was out, the kids were downstairs, I was left alone with my badbadnotgood in the kitchen. Tonight’s recipe was something that’s not in the rotation - a warm salad - and I was jazzed to give it a go. It even had beans! My pantry go-to. And then the rails came off.

Tonight’s takes:

Husband: “It was fine. You’ve made that dinner before. You just didn’t chop it all up and put it in a bowl.”

Helen (7 years old): “I don’t want to be rude. I can eat it. 😩😩😩 I’d give it a 1 out of 10.”

Hector (4 years old): “Mama, I don’t like this food or hot tubs! 😡 I’d give it a 1 out of 9.” [5 minutes later] “I don’t like it and I’m still eating it.”

For the record, I really liked it. I’m just going to have to figure out how to trick the kids into eating it again.

Original recipe from this month’s Bon Appétit:

What I used:

• 1 steelhead trout fillet

• 1 bunch asparagus

• 1 garlic clove

• 2 cans cannellini beans

• half a bunch of parsley

• a few sprigs of mint

• juice from 2 lemons

• red pepper flakes

• olive oil & canola oil

• salt & pepper

What I did:

Prepped my ingredients. Started with the trout. Cut it into 3 strips and removed the flesh from the skin. This was a pain in the butt because I’m not good at it. I used my fingers to loosen the flesh as much as I could before I used a long thin knife to slice it off.

Cut the trout into chunks.

Washed the asparagus and snapped the ends off.

Cut the asparagus into 1-inch pieces, sliced the garlic and opened and rinsed the beans

Got my Le Creuset pot on medium with a bit of olive oil in it. Once it was warm, added the asparagus, garlic and beans in. Also added 1/4 cup of water and some salt and pepper.

As the veg was cooking, made the vinaigrette. I just made it right in the serving bowl. Juiced the two lemons. And forgot to zest them beforehand, so didn’t add any! I didn’t miss it.

Added about 1/3 as much olive oil as there was juice and a pinch of red pepper flakes and salt.

By now the veg was done. It cooked for 4 minutes.

Added the veg right into the serving bowl with the vinaigrette. Tossed to combine.

Next I cooked the trout. I added canola oil to the same Le Creuset pot, gave it a minute to warm up, then tossed in the trout with a generous pinch of salt and pepper. I used canola oil because I was worried olive oil would start smoking.

I missed a picture here because I’m out of practice! It’s been a few moons since my last post.

As the trout was cooking, I prepped my herbs. I removed the leaves from the stems and diced them up.

After a few minutes the trout was cooked about half-way through. I flipped each piece over.

After about 5 minutes my thinner pieces were finished. I pulled them out and set them on the veg mix. It took about 8 minutes to finish every piece off.

I made sure to scrape up the crispy bits and tossed them in as well. Added the herbs and then carefully tossed it all together. I wanted the fish to stay in cubes as much as possible.

Served!

Next time:

Other than figuring out a way to get my kids on board, I’d cook the fish whole (on the skin) in the oven. It was a huge pain and time-suck to remove the flesh from the skin when it was raw. And my kitchen stunk like fried fish for a good 2 hours after dinner. Cooking the trout in the oven would have made it much easier to get the flesh off the skin after it was cooked and it would have cut down on the smell. The trout wouldn’t be in nice little cubes in the end, but I don’t need this dish to grace the pages of Bon Appétit.

I could have been more generous with my red pepper flakes and it would have been great to have a piece of baguette on the side to sop up the sauce/dressing.

😋😋😋

-Ellisa