the trout are running!

chris and mr. sal just caught a bunch of speckled and white trout. i decided to stuff and grill them! it was a somewhat laborious process, and in the end they ended up sticking to the grill (i was devastated...#firstworldproblems) but they still tasted good. i will do it again; this time i'm just going to have to actually scrub my grill completely clean, which probably needs to happen anyway. 

these were gutted when they were delivered to me (yay) but i did have to scale them. i guess at this point in most recipes the author says "ask your fish monger to scale and gut the fish for you" but i know none of you have one of those. to scale them you just run a butter knife from tail to head...do it outside! they get everywhere. i read one recipe that said you don't have to scale trout, particularly small ones, but i'm just not sure about that so i did it anyway. 

bring them inside and rinse (or you can spray them with your water hose outside like me but they're kind of slippery and one flew across the yard and got covered in grass). use a sharp knife to open up the cavity of the fish. i follow along the spine, you'll have to go through the bones but they're not too difficult to cut through. i sauteed some garlic in olive oil and added a couple of tablespoons of fresh chili paste to stuff inside the fish along with thinly sliced lemon, fresh herbs, butter, and salt and pepper. leave the butter at room temperature and smear inside the fish after you season, then add the garlic/sambal mixture. season the inside of the fish before you fill it with other ingredients and then tie it shut. i used hemp string. thoroughly coat the outside of the fish with oil and salt and pepper (i used extra virgin olive oil). this, along with a clean grill, keep it from sticking. try to only flip the fish once, searing the skin so that it's crisp. they'll need to cook around seven minutes per side, and of course this depends on the size of the fish. we were grilling a ton of other things so i let these chill in a warm oven while i finished the rest of the meats, something i always do when grilling for a crowd. 

a precious baby trout stuffed to the brim

what you need:

4 tbsp garlic

4 tbsp sambal chili paste

sprig of thyme, leaves of basil and lemon balm (whatever herbs you have in your garden/fridge)

salt

pepper

4 tbsp butter

1 lemon (halved and sliced thinly)

trout! (you could do this with drum or redfish, too)