Trout In A Green Dress

“Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings…”
This is an appropriately seasonal recipe for trout wrapped in lettuce. The only problem with it is the bones, so leave out big plates for people to put the heads, tails and bones onto, and serve it somewhere light, where they can see what they are doing.
The taste, though, is very fresh and spring-like.
Recipe for trout in a green dress
- ¼ cucumber
- 1 cos lettuce
- 2 spring onions
- 2 tablespoons (big handful) parsley
- knob of butter to grease baking dish and scatter little knobs on top
- 2 trout, gutted
- 120ml/½ cup/1 large wine glass (good slosh) of white wine, cider, or dry vermouth (even rosato)
- juice of one lemon
- warm plates
- grease baking dish – or you can cook individually in foil
- heat oven – 180°C
- boil kettle of water
- peel cucumber and wash vegetables
- pour boiling water into a bowl, dip four lettuce leaves in and out and dry
- in a processor mix rest of lettuce, spring onions, cucmber, parsley, salt and pepper
- pour into baking dish and spread over bottom
- season inside of trout, wrap each with two lettuce leaves, place in baking dish on top of sauce
- pour over alcohol
- add lemon juice
- scatter small knobs of butter on top
- bake 30 – 45 minutes – longer if in foil, or if the fish are very large
- serve with all juices, and some boiled Jersey Royal potatoes
This post is dedicated to Jacquie Dobson
And you could listen to Schubert’s The Trout (Das Forellen), below:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTk_Eh_L8JA]