Broiled Rainbow Trout With Lemon Parsley Brown Butter Sauce

A classic brown butter sauce is one of the simplest of sauces to serve with a seafood dinner. It is delightful on trout, a fish with a mild flavor. In this recipe, the trout is broiled, which takes only a few minutes and makes this recipe perfect for beginner fish cooks.

Fish in brown butter sauce is a classic French entrée. The most famous fish dish is undoubtedly sole meunière, sole in a rich brown butter sauce. Browning butter is an easy, straightforward process, but there are a few things to keep in mind. Cut the butter into pieces so it melts evenly. For the saucepan, use one with a light color to better see when the butter has the desired color and when you need to turn the heat way down to keep the butter just warm. In a dark pan, such as not a nonstick saucepan, you can easily let the butter become too dark.

The butter foams at first, which is caused by the water in the butter and is a normal process. The amount of foaming depends on the water content. American butter tends to foam more, while European butter has a higher fat content and foams less.

Don’t forget to preheat the broiler and adjust the oven rack to 4 inches from the heat source. Rainbow trout is a thin fish so there is no need to flip it over. Remain close by while you are broiling the fish to avoid it from browning too much. The cooking time is roughly 3 to 5 minutes, but testing the fish with a fork for flakiness is a much better indicator for doneness. 

Rainbow trout is a popular freshwater fish for game fishing, mostly in the spring. It is in the same family as salmon, but salmon is fattier, has a stronger flavor, and the meat has a more vibrant color. While it is native to the rivers and lakes draining into the Pacific Ocean on the west coast of North America, rainbow trout is often stocked in ponds and lakes to make it available for game fishing. Unless you buy it at a fish market, the rainbow trout you can find at your supermarket is most likely farm raised. And unlike freshly fished rainbow trout, it is available year-round. The whole fish comes with the head; remove it after cooking and discard it, or use it in homemade seafood stock.