Baked Trout on a Grill Pan: Simple Grilled Trout Fillet

Baked Trout on a Grill Pan

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There was a time when hardly anyone could tell pink salmon from salmon, or salmon from trout. They all went by one name: red fish. A rare treat! In fact, most red fish belong to the salmon family. Trout, for example, is the common name for the freshwater members of that family.

Once I was lucky enough to fish for wild rainbow trout in a high mountain lake in Northern California. It was a great fishing trip: very high up and quite cold. There were huge boulders on the shore and in the water, so you had to manage to cast the spoon between the rocks without snagging it. If you did it right, a bite was almost guaranteed. A small fish, 30 cm at most, incredibly beautiful. It was released right away, of course. The main thing is to avoid touching it with your hands, because with such a temperature difference the fish gets a thermal burn.

The classic of world literature Hemingway mentions fishing for trout with a rod in several of his works. I suspect the writer was fond of fishing. There’s no trout in our parts. Maybe somewhere high in the mountains, you understand, but not in our district, as Comrade Saakhov put it. In our district the trout is farm-raised, sometimes even raised specifically to monitor water purity.

Still, fresh-frozen trout of almost any kind and size is sold everywhere. That’s usually what we eat. Many people even think that fish labeled “chilled” on the price tag is super fresh, never frozen, and brought in on ice just today. I won’t try to talk them out of it.

For all the variety of trout recipes, my favorites are the ones where the fish isn’t fried in oil, battered or baked in foil.
Cooking trout at home isn’t difficult, and the fewer spices and tricks you use, the more natural and rich the flavor of the fish.

The ideal way to cook trout is trout in the oven. Minimum fat and spices, maximum flavor. Trout Bergamo-style is very tasty, though a bit tricky: the fish is stewed in dry white wine with herbs. And of course there’s fish in sweet and sour sauce.

Some time ago we became interested in cooking meat and fish on a grill rack. There’s very little fat, which matters. It’s simple and takes little time. For a while we used an electric grill, brought from Bulgaria, where this device is called a “skara”. You can’t set up a charcoal grill in a city apartment, so this rack was convenient and served us for a long time. Then we switched to cooking with a grill pan. It looks like an ordinary frying pan, square or round, with a heavy base and ridges. It fries steaks, vegetables and fish beautifully. Of course, if you’re picky, the taste differs from food cooked over charcoal.

Today I want to show you how we cook fish: baked trout in a grill pan.

More with trout

Ingredients

4 servings

Step-by-step recipe

Preparing the fish

  1. If you’re lucky enough to catch a trout, I envy you. Baked trout will taste twice as good.

  2. If you simply bought the trout, it needs to be thawed. At normal temperature, but ideally not in the room: in the refrigerator. It takes longer, but the fish won’t leak. Just move the frozen fish from the freezer to the fridge in the evening, and by morning it will be just right.

    You can catch trout yourself. Nevada, USA, Silver Lake, 2005.

  3. Carefully scale the fish with a knife. It’s easy: the scales are small and come off very well.

  4. Cut off the head and fins and gut the fish, if that wasn’t done before freezing.

  5. Cut off the fillets with a sharp knife. The backbone, head and fins can be saved for fish soup.

  6. Try to remove all the rib bones.

    Cut off the fillets with a sharp knife. Try to remove all the rib bones.

  7. Cut each fillet into 2 pieces of about 150 g (approximately). For this dish we need one piece of fillet per serving.

    If you’re cooking for two, it’s better to use matching pieces, either both from the tail end or both from the body.

Spices

  1. Place the fillets on a plate skin side down. Pat the flesh dry with a paper towel so it doesn’t leak.

  2. In a mortar, grind a quarter teaspoon each of salt (sea salt works), coriander seeds and mixed peppercorns to a powder. Be sure to add one allspice berry and a pinch of dried aromatic herbs.

    In total you’ll get a scant teaspoon of the mixture. Don’t try to use all of it, go strictly by taste.

    Grind the spices to a powder in a mortar.

  3. Sprinkle the trout fillets with the spices and rub them into the fish.

    Sprinkle the trout fillets with the spices.

  4. Turn the fillets skin side up, as the fish salts better this way. Refrigerate the fillets for 15 mins.

Cooking on the grill pan

  1. Set the grill pan over high heat and heat it well. There’s no need to oil the pan.

    You need to cook on a pan that’s as hot as possible, so a crust forms immediately and the juices stay inside.

  2. Take the trout fillets out of the fridge and pat them thoroughly with a paper towel so the surface of the fish is practically dry.

  3. Brush the fish on both sides with a small amount of olive oil.

  4. Place the fillets on the ridged surface skin side down. That is, the fish should start out lying on its skin, not the other way around.

  5. Press the fish against the pan with a spatula for better contact. This is important.

    When cooking on a charcoal grill, the heat rises evenly from the coals and cooks the food regardless of contact with the rack. An electric grill and a grill pan cook mostly through contact with the food.

    Place the fillets on the ridged surface skin side down.

  6. Fry the fillets for 4 mins without a lid. Try not to move the fish, so you get a nice pattern from the ridges of the pan.

  7. Turn the fish over and, without moving it, cook for another 4 mins. That’s enough for the baked trout to cook through well.

    But if you’re unsure, adjust the cooking time up or down as you see fit. A kitchen thermometer is handy for checking doneness.

    After 4 mins turn the fish over and, without moving it, cook for another 4 mins.

Serving

  1. Place the cooked fish on a plate skin side down. We usually don’t eat the skin, preferring only the red flesh, but many of our friends love a bit of crunch.

    Place the cooked fish on a plate.

  2. Drizzle the fish with a little lemon juice if you like, as baked trout goes very well with it. Garnish with fresh herbs and add sliced vegetables on the side. A glass of good white wine won’t hurt either.

    Baked trout

Calories and macros

315 kcal

Serving ≈ 140 g

  • Protein40 g53% of kcal
  • Fat16 g47% of kcal
  • Carbs0 g0% of kcal

100 g219 kcalProtein 27.9 gFat 11.1 gCarbs 0.1 g

Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.

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