Trout for dinner

We had agreed yesterday that tonight’s dinner would be the trout filets that sat anxiously in the fridge. I hadn’t decided on how to prepare them, and as I didn’t get home from work until after 7:00 P.M. I was hoping that M had — in that magical way of hers — simply taken care of it.

No dice. She wasn’t home when I arrived. My only reception was a sleepy cat. No problem — I quickly concocted a plan and set to work.

I sprayed a light coating of olive oil on the bottom of a rectangular Pyrex dish, then laid in the filets, skin side down. I gave them a light whoosh of salt and pepper, and a breath of dried dill (alas, it’s winter). Then I alternated thin slices of lemon and onion, and poured in about a half a cup of white wine and a squirt of lemon juice. Then a quick scatter of of thinly-sliced red bell pepper and into a hot 400º F oven, uncovered.

Then the pasta. I set a large pot of water to boil, and in a deep saucepan set a hashed shallot and three smashed cloves of garlic to sweat for five minutes in a big slug of olive oil. By then the oasta water was boiling, so I threw in a few nests of taglitelle and stirred it up. (In the meantime, I had prepared some asparagus for steaming — at this point I turned on the heat.)

The fish was nicely oven-poaching, so I returned to the sauce pan. I added about 3/4 cup of chicken stock to the shallots and garlic and cranked up the heat to a rapid boil. A mitt full of dried parsley fell in, along with a whisper of thyme for aroma. It reduced quickly, so I turned down the heat and poured in a glug of sherry.

The fish came out of the oven (total time, about 15 minutes), the pasta was drained, and the asparagus was taken off the heat.

Finally, I removed the sauce from the heat and stirred in a couple of spoonfuls of 15% cream. I tipped in the pasta, stirred it up, and plated everything onto warmed dinnerware.

Sorry, no pictures. Too hungry.