Cooking a whole fish can be intimidating at first, but in reality it is one of the easiest and most delicious ways to cook a fish! The meat comes out more tender and juicier than if you were to fillet a smaller fish like a trout. I like to simply gut, scale, and de-gill the trout and then stuff the insides with lemon, garlic, and/or just about any fresh herb you have in the pantry. I prefer to use thyme, rosemary, parsley, oregano, or any combination of those. For this recipe, I am just sticking to thyme, lemon, garlic, salt & pepper.
Side Note: If you're not catching your own trout and cleaning the fish yourself, you can always ask your butcher to gut, scale, and de-gill the fish for you. Just let him/her know that you will be whole-roasting the fish!
Ingredients:
- Whole Trout (gills, guts, & scales removed)
- Fingerling potatoes (halved lengthwise)
- Asparagus
- 3-4 Garlic cloves (peeled)
- 1 small bunch of Thyme
- Salt & Pepper
- Olive Oil
Caught by yours truly on a fly in Deckers, CO!
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 420 degrees F
- Place potatoes in a small pot and cover them with water. Add a teaspoon of salt to water and boil potatoes for about 12 minutes until you can fork them fairly easily. Strain potatoes and pat dry.
- Add potatoes and asparagus to a large baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil. Season with salt and pepper.
- Rub your scaled, gutted, and gilled trout with olive oil and season the inside and outside of the fish with salt and pepper. Slice your lemon into 1/3 inch slices, peel 3 garlic cloves, pick a few sprigs of fresh thyme, then arrange ingredients inside of the cavity of the fish. Add stuffed fish to pan surrounded by asparagus, a few garlic cloves (if you want) and fingerling potatoes.
- Add pan to preheated oven and bake for about 25-30 minutes until potatoes are crispy and the fish is cooked thoroughly. The meat should flake easily when it's prodded by a fork and the skin should be slightly crispy near the end of the ribs.
To eat the fish, I like to peel the skin back starting from the belly and then simply pinch off forkfuls of meat. The meat should be so tender that the flesh will fall right off the bones! I've also been fishing almost my entire life, so I know how to clean and eat a whole-cooked fish. Maybe I'll write a whole post on that someday!
For now, you can see more photos and videos of the Whole Roasted Trout recipe process by visiting the post on my Instagram of me cooking the whole roasted trout!
Before going in the oven... This is a one pan recipe, which makes clean-up a breeze!
Remove all herbs and lemon from the fish and fork away at that juicy meat! Enjoy with a nice stout or porter.