Sunday Feast № 36 | Roasted Trout with Thyme

This is a recipe I picked up a long time ago. Really long time ago. It is the easiest way to prepare a meal that can be served on a bed of lettuce or with Turkish bread and salad or with some sautéed potatoes and salad, and paired with a nice sauvignon blanc or similar dry white wine. Till now, I always did it with a whole trout, head and all, but as it turns out fillets work just as well. They have the added advantage of visual assessment for doneness as you can see the flesh turning opaque. Clean, filling, and very satisfying.

2 trouts either whole, scaled and gutted or 2 trout fillets 1 handful of fresh thyme leaves rough salt and fresh ground pepper 2 tbsp olive oil + more to drizzle 1 lemon 2 bay leaves

Preheat the oven to its highest temperature (290°C/550°F in my case). Wash the trout inside and out and pat dry with kitchen towel. Using mortar and pestle, smash the thyme w 1 tsp of salt and pepper, or mush up in a small bowl to crush thyme leaves and release their aroma. Continue after adding olive oil. Rub this mixture into the trout, smearing the flavor into the belly cavity and onto the skin. Place the trout on a roasting pan, lined with aluminum foil if desired, and drizzle some (~1-2 tsp) olive oil on top of the fish. Cut the lemon in half and remove the ends so that the halves have a flat edge. With a knife make an incision into the flesh of each lemon half and stick a bay leaf into it. Place on the roasting pan with the trout. Put the roasting pan with trout ad lemon in the oven and bake for ~10-15 min. Check the trout is cooked. If the meat pulls away from the bone easily in the trout's thickest part, then it is cooked. With fillets - hence, no head - you can see the flesh being opaque when cooked. If not, put it all back into the oven for couple of more minutes. By the time it is cooked , trout skin should be crispy and roasted lemons should be sweet and bit jam like in flavor. Serve the trout with lemon, which you squeeze onto the fish.