Another Friday Fish Dish

Louise strikes again!

That's right. After the curried chicken crepes fiasco, I kept my distance from Louise Dodd's cook book. But Wednesday night, because of a wee bit of insomnia, I lay down on the couch with my cozy comforter and Louise's book. A Lenten Friday would soon be upon me, so I thought I'd browse Dodd's book for an appropriate dinner. Of course, I found one.



Chartres Street Trout looked perfect for several reasons:

• I had trout downstairs in the freezer that needed to be eaten up.
• I had all the other ingredients (besides capers) already in my kitchen.
• I had never had capers. In fact, I didn't even know what capers were until I looked them up tonight. They are pickled unopened flower buds of the Mediterranean plant capparis spinosa.
  
• The recipe looked easy to make.

Louise said she discovered this recipe in New Orleans one year when she went there for the Sugar Bowl. She ate at a restaurant called Christopher Blake's, and she met the chef, who shared the recipe.

Although the recipe is easy, it calls for much more butter than is needed. I didn't even use half a stick. It also calls for butcher paper or parchment paper, smeared with butter, for covering up the fish in the oven. Not until after I had the fish laid out in the pan did I realize I only had the tail end of a roll of parchment paper left. And I don't keep butcher paper lying around. Fortunately, for my writing group meeting last night, I'd purchased two bottles of cheap wine, and I still had the little brown paper bags. So I cut them open and smeared them with butter. Viola! They worked like a charm.

Ingredients:
6 fillets of fresh trout
1 stick butter (really, you don't need that much. You just need enough to smear)
Juice of 2 lemons
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 tsp. Tabasco sauce
4 tbsp. large capers
chopped parsley or chervil (I just realized I forgot that part)

Instructions:
Place trout in a buttered pan. Dot each trout with small pieces of butter and cover with buttered white butcher paper or parchment paper (or in a pinch, a brown paper bag). Bake in a moderate oven (350 degrees) for 15-20 minutes, depending on the size of the trout. Do not overcook the fish. When the fish are done, immediately add the lemon juice to the butter in the pan, along with salt and pepper to taste and the Tabasco sauce. Add the drained capers. Serve immediately with chopped parsley and chervil.

Louise says to serve the fish with buttered wedges of toast. I guess you can do that, but I served it with broccoli and Stephen's favorite side dish: grits.

The verdict:
Lawson: "I don't like it."
Davis: "It's too lemony. But I'm just not a big fan of broiled or baked fish."
Stephen: "I'm still trying to figure out the capers."
Me: "I don't understand why I had to cover the fish with paper."

And the verdict on the capers? Stephen and I agree that it's like eating a tiny pickle.