By Suzanna Leigh and Marjorie Watkins
These days Marj’s words come slowly and painfully, as she sometimes tells us a story she has told many times before, and sometimes a new one. Today, she told us about a boy she knew who lived under a bridge.
It was back in the Depression days. He lived under a highway bridge near Rockaway, Oregon, with only his father (his mother had died) and went to Marj’s school. In spite of living under a bridge, he was the top student in her class, with straight As. Mom was second.
I asked Mom if the other boys were jealous of him, living wild like Huckleberry Finn, only more so. She told me they thought he got such high grades because he got all the attention from his father, or that the teachers were lenient with him because they felt sorry for him. I wondered how he could do his homework with no table and no chairs to sit on, and what would he do for light?
Maybe the bridge was over a stream, where they could just sit in their “home” under the bridge and drop their fishing lines in the water to catch their supper, probably trout.
Which put us in mind of this article I adapted from the archives:
A Fanfare for Fishes
All fishes help your heart and your brain function. To my surprise, I found that trout gives you even more Omega 3s, fat, protein, and selenium than salmon, with about the same calorie count. Besides, trout costs considerably less per pound than salmon.
An easy cooking method is to bake it in a 350 degree oven in a glass or ceramic baking dish. (I can imagine the boy in mom’s story frying his fish in a pan over an open fire, or maybe impaled on a stick and roasted like a marshmallow).
In a pan long enough to hold a ½ lb trout, melt a pat of butter. Tilt the dish so that there will be melted butter beneath each whole trout. Choose fish that do not have sunken eyes; flat-eyed fish will do if eaten within hours of purchase. Our Chinese relatives only buy fish that are still flopping.
Slip the fish into the dish, turn the fish over, and tuck a green onion and a parsley sprig into the tummy of each. Salt and pepper are optional. Bake about 7 minutes, depending on the thickness of your fish. You want the meat to be opaque. A half-pound trout serves one hungry person or two with smaller appetites.
For a more elegant dish with very little more effort, give your trout a garnish of butter-toasted sliced almonds. Preparation takes only 5 minutes. Cook the fish no more than 10 minutes per 1-inch thickness. A skillet on the stove top, over medium heat, works fine.
Trout Almondine
Serves 2-4
4 tbsp butter (½ stick), divided
¼ to ½ cup sliced almonds
2 trout (½ lb each)
Salt to taste
Minced parsley or cilantro
Lemon juice, optional
In a 12-inch skillet, on medium heat, melt 2 tbsp butter. Add almonds. Stir-cook until slices are golden. Pour with the butter into a cup or small bowl. Reserve.
Melt the remaining 2 tbsp of butter in the skillet. Add the fish. When brown on one side, about 5 minutes, turn and brown the other side. Cook up to 5 minutes more for 1-inch thick fish. Sprinkle with salt. Garnish with minced parsley. Serve from the skillet with a small wedge of lemon on the side if desired. Fresh trout is so good it doesn’t really need lemon.
Marj should know. Her father fished for trout into his 80s, driving his green pickup truck with the home-build camper on the back, up to the hill streams where the best fish were.
