Pan-Fried Trout

For months and months, I've wanted to experiment with the pan frying of thin fish fillets. Yesterday while on a humungus food gathering trip, I bought some fresh trout fillets at Whole Foods near Newton Highlands. I studied The All New Joy of Cooking and the 1974 Joy of Cooking, and both books made it seem so complicated: the soaking in milk or egg, the dredging of the fillets in flour, the frying in butter and oil with all the warnings about smoke coming from the frying butter! In despair, I even turned to my old Betty Crocker Cookbook that's so basic. After reading it, I threw my hands up and was ready to turn on the broiler and forget the whole thing, when it dawned on me to phone Joan, my neighbor, whose husband goes fishing every weekend. If anyone around here knows how to fry fish, I figured it had to be Joan.

Sure enough, even though she was off to Staples for some back to school shopping, Joan was more than willing to stop long enough to instruct me. She made pan frying sound so easy, and she had lots of tips. (I must add that cooking is Joan's premiere hobby.)

I soaked the trout in milk for 5 minutes, I dredged it in the flour, salt, and pepper, I fried it in 2 T. olive oil (with garlic added at the end of frying) and 2 T. butter. And I served it with lime juice. I devoured it and kept raving like a maniac about how good it was. "Doesn't this taste great?" I kept saying. Ken probably wanted to shoot me after I'd exclaimed over it for the fourth time. The fact is, I couldn't believe that the process (soaking raw fish in milk? ugh) could yield something so yummy.

Next time: Try 2 T. oil and 1 T. butter--that will be enough. I had more fat than I needed, I think, for the amount of fish I had (3/4 lb.).

A new Eggplant Parmigiana recipe--from America's Test Kitchen for tonight's meal.