Trout amandine with lemon butter and parsley

Serves - 4

You’ll need

• 4 trout fillets, skin on
• 50g flaked almonds
• 2 tbsp plain flour
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 40g unsalted butter
• Juice of 1 lemon
• Zest of ½ lemon
• Small handful flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
• Sea salt
• Black pepper

Method

1. Toast the almonds

Put the flaked almonds into a dry frying pan over a medium heat and toast for 2–3 minutes, shaking the pan now and then, until lightly golden and smelling properly nutty. Tip them onto a plate straight away so they do not keep cooking and catch while you are doing something else.

2. Prep the trout

Pat the trout fillets dry with kitchen paper, then season with sea salt and black pepper. Dust them lightly in the flour, shaking off any excess. You are not trying to give them a heavy coating – just enough to help them colour nicely and give the sauce something to cling to.

3. Cook the trout

Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan over a medium-high heat. Add the trout fillets skin-side down and cook for 3–4 minutes until the skin is crisp and golden. Turn them carefully and cook for another 1–2 minutes on the other side until just cooked through. Lift them onto a warm plate and keep them to one side for a moment.

4. Make the lemon butter

Turn the heat down slightly and add the butter to the pan. Once melted and foaming, stir in the lemon juice, lemon zest and most of the parsley. Let it bubble for 30 seconds or so, then add the toasted almonds. It should smell fresh, buttery and exactly like the sort of thing you will want to spoon over everything.

5. Bring it all together

Return the trout briefly to the pan, or simply spoon the lemon butter and almonds over the fillets on the plate. Either works perfectly well, so choose whichever feels less likely to break the fish.

6. Serve

Serve straight away with the remaining parsley scattered over the top. Very good with crushed new potatoes, buttered green beans or a simple fennel salad on the side.

A couple of helpful notes

- Trout is delicate, so it is worth having everything else ready before the fish goes into the pan.
- Do not let the butter brown too far unless you want a nuttier, deeper finish – it is lovely either way, but the brighter lemony version is especially good with fresher whites.
- If you want to lean even further into that Luberon Blanc sort of pairing, serve it with something light and herbal on the side rather than anything too rich.