Two things happened to me recently – I bought some amazing looking wild and never frozen trout and received my order of personalized kitchen supplies from Personalization Mall. This meant that we were having fresh oven baked trout this Friday to celebrate my wooden utensils and my cutting board that all bear my name.

Fish is not normally my go-to food, but I recognize its health benefits and go along with it. My son agrees with me, but little does he know how much Nutrisystem and other diets emphasize the importance of eating lean proteins. So there, health won over grilled steak tonight, which is a good thing because we had some serious storm raging outside this evening, so grilling would’ve been cancelled anyway.

This meal is super simple and absolutely tasty – take it from a steak lover! I wanted to make sure that fish doesn’t dry out and retains all its juices, so I went with oven baking it in foil. I also enjoy serving fish with simple jasmine rice with coconut oil, so I made that as well.

Ingredients:

• 2 large or 4 small wild butterflied trout, without head
• Seasoning of choice or salt and pepper
• Fresh or frozen dill
• ½ of organic lemon
• 1 cup of organic jasmine rice
• 1 teaspoon of organic coconut oil

I always start by cooking rice. Put one cup of rice in 1 ½ cup of salted water. Let it start boiling, add a teaspoon of coconut oil, stir, reduce heat to just simmer, cover, and let it cook until almost all water evaporates.

Then turn it off, and let it sit until you are ready to serve. Fluff rice with a fork before putting it on the plate.

Next preheat your oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. Wash your fish and cut off the heads.

Place each fish on a lightly oiled heavy duty foil. If you don’t have heavy duty foil, use double folded regular kind. This way no steam or juice will escape.

Put salt and pepper and whatever other fish seasoning you might be using on both sides of the fish and inside of it. You can prepare fish this way a few hours in advance or do it right before baking. Put some fresh or frozen dill or rosemary inside the fish. Then cut 2 slices of lemon and insert them inside the fish. Then close fish bellies and wrap them tightly in the foil. Bend all corners to keep the heat in.

Place fish on a baking dish and bake for 15-20 minutes. My trout were on ice and still chilled when I started working on them, so it took good 20 minutes to bake them to perfection.

Once you take them out of the oven, be careful when un-wrapping the foil, because the steam comes out with quite a force and can burn you if you are not careful.

I was very impressed with how juicy the meat was and how gentle the taste. My kids were amazed at how many bones there were inside. I guess I should cook whole fish more often, because they think fish don’t have bones and are held together by their skin and scales!

This meal also goes great with sautéed asparagus or boiled salted green beans. Whichever way you choose to serve it, you will enjoy it!