Trout Amandine: Quick and Easy Dinner

Trout almondine is a classic French dish. And though it may sound a little intimidating, it is actually incredibly easy to make for a weeknight dinner. Today, Christy's gonna show us how. It's so easy, Julia. It's all technique. We're talking about pan-fried trout with a really delicious buttery brown butter sauce. And I love that you're using trout because cod and salmon get all the love, but trout is delicious. It's really easy, it's simple, and it's actually a very forgiving fish. So I have four fillets of freshwater trout. They're skin on, four to six ounces each. They're gorgeous. They're really beautiful. And this is a moist, tender, flaky fish. It's so nice in this. Now, you can find saltwater trout. We don't wanna use that. It's a different animal. Right, it looks more like salmon and cooks totally differently. So I'm just gonna pat these dry because we're gonna be pan-frying. So we wanna get rid of any excess moisture. That's right. Aren't they beautiful? They're gorgeous. And we're using skin-on fillets because that's actually gonna help protect the fish and maintain its structure while it's cooking. That makes sense. Plus, it's tasty. And now I'm going to season it all over. I've combined a teaspoon of salt and a half teaspoon of pepper. So I'm seasoning this all over because a lot of people love to eat the skin too. This'll get nice and crisp. While these are beautiful, they're also quite lean. And so the problem with pan-frying trout is that it's hard to get them browned before they get overcooked. So we're gonna dredge these, just a light dredge of flour, just to give them a little extra coating because this flour is actually going to brown before the fish does. It'll give us some nice brown color, toasty flavor. And it'll also actually act almost like a shield between the heat of the skillet and the flesh of the fish. Yeah, and it's a classic French technique that is often used on thin pieces of fish or chicken or veal. Again, it's a nice protective layer, but it tastes good when it's good and brown. And this is just about a quarter cup of flour in here. We don't need very much. You just wanna have a nice shallow bowl or dish like this so that we can get good coverage. All right, so we've got four lovely floured fillets. Now I just have to clean up and we can start cooking. Right. Julie, I'm gonna start with one tablespoon of vegetable oil and I'll heat this over medium heat. I love that you're using nonstick because it is brilliant when cooking fish so the fish doesn't stick to the pan, which is a classic problem. Right, the skin is gonna tighten up and with the flour on it, it'll help with the release, but we don't wanna take any chances. So we'll just let that heat up until it's just smoking. In the meantime, I can put together some of the ingredients for my sauce. Right. So I'm gonna zest my lemon first. And how much volume are you looking for? About two teaspoons. And the zest is so important because that's where all the really good lemon flavor is. So we're not skimping on this. So I'm just going to give this a little roll, loosen up those juices. Yep, get those juices flowing before you cut it open. And now we'll juice this. I need four teaspoons of lemon juice. All right, so I need four teaspoons. All right, and then the final thing, I have some parsley. So I have fresh parsley. I've picked the leaves and I just wanna give it a chop and this will just add some nice freshness to finish the dish. I need two tablespoons. There's one. Oh, that's pretty good. Julia, the oil's nice and hot so we can start pan frying that fish. All right. So we're only gonna do two filets at a time. We don't wanna overcrowd the pan. And we're gonna start this with the skin side down. Now this will happen pretty quickly. We're just working on getting some golden brown color on the skin and helping it crisp a little bit. This will only take about two to four minutes. Not sure what to make tonight? We have an app for that. That's right. Our app gives you exclusive access to thousands of recipes and reviews from Cook's Country and the entire America's Test Kitchen family. You'll also get exclusive access to helpful step-by-step videos and have the ability to stream every season of Cook's Country ad-free. Without interruptions like this. Anywhere, anytime on any mobile device. For a more personalized experience, our app also allows you to search by ingredients, set dietary preferences, save recipes, and make notes along the way. Scan the QR code or visit the app store to keep Cook's Country in the palm of your hand. Oh, that smells good, Christy. Doesn't it? Yeah. You can see the edge of the browning. I think we're there. So now you can use a helper spatula if you want. This is pretty firm. So it's not too hard to flip it on its own. Oh, goodness. Look at that. That is picture perfect. That is gorgeous. Nice, flavorful browning. We're just gonna cook the other side until the flesh is opaque and it's just starting to get some nice golden color. It's been a minute on the second side. So we'll take a little peek. Oh, look at that. I'm just gonna flip it so you can see it. Isn't that beautiful? Gorgeous. So it's nice and opaque. It's starting to get golden. That's all the color we need. So we'll get this out of the pan and I am gonna put it skin side down. While the skin is nice and brown, we didn't really get to cook it long enough for the skin to become super crispy. So we're not focusing on that as much as this golden, beautiful color. So now I'm just going to heat another tablespoon of oil. That'll heat up in no time because our pan is nice and hot now. Okay, now we're gonna do the same thing with the second batch. Good enough to eat. Good enough to eat just like that. But we're gonna up the ante a little bit and we're gonna make a beautiful almondine. I have eight tablespoons of unsalted butter and I've cut these into eight pieces so it'll melt pretty quickly. Now I'm gonna cook this until we have some nice golden brown color. The trick though with a brown butter, especially in a dark skillet like this, is that first of all, you wanna be stirring it constantly so any of those milk solids don't burn. But it's helpful to use a light or a white spatula so that you can kind of gauge the color on a spatula because you really can't see it. Yeah, that's very clever. So we don't wanna take the butter all the way to brown brown because we have to cook our nuts. You gotta do a little digging. You see the flecks? Yep. Golden brown. So now I'm adding half a cup of sliced almonds and definitely wanna start with raw almonds here because if you started with toasted, they'll get too dark. These are gonna toast and become nice and golden brown in about two minutes. And you wanna be either stirring the butter or swirling your pan just to make sure there's movement and we don't have anything sticking. Butter toasted almonds. So good. So I'm gonna quickly add, but carefully add my final ingredients. So that was that four teaspoons of lemon juice and two teaspoons of lemon zest. Ooh, that's a lot of flavor. Love it. And then a quarter teaspoon of table salt. Right, because it was unsalted butter. Right. All right. Oh my goodness. Look at this. Oh, gorgeous. Has this whole dish taken us more than 15 minutes? No, I mean, it's so incredibly easy. Okay, so we're just gonna pour this right over the fish. Oh goodness. You know, amandine means to garnish with almonds and we have fully garnished this fish. Oh, that's gorgeous. Now we'll just sprinkle some of that fresh parsley on top. Oh, Christy, that is just beautiful. Almost don't wanna eat it. Almost. Let's not kid ourselves. Let me serve you. Oh. It's just so elegant looking. It is really elegant looking. A little bit of that beurre noisette or that brown butter. I mean, does this look like a weeknight meal? No. All right, I'm going right into the thick part of the fish. Almonds and butter. Mm. That is delicious. You taste the trout. You also get that hit of brown butter with the almond and that lemon zing. Perfectly balanced flavor. We hope you enjoyed this video and tune in for more. Hit those like and subscribe buttons so you never miss a single one. And if you're ready to take your cooking to the next level, try our digital all-access membership where you can stream every season of Cook's Country anytime, anywhere, and always ad-free. Plus, you'll gain unlimited access to all of America's Test Kitchen fail-proof recipes, unbiased reviews, fresh episodes, exclusive offers, and more. Just scan the QR code or head over to CooksCountry.com to sign up for a free trial. 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