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CHEF JOHN BESH
John Besh’s Trout Almandine
Serves 6
Browning the butter properly makes all the difference in the world. Don’t
rush it; take your time swirling the butter around in the pan so that the
milk solids brown in a uniform fashion, creating the nutty aroma that is
compounded when the almonds are added. Add lemon and serve while the
sauce is still foamy.
WHAT YOU WILL NEED
6 filets (5-7 ounce) of speckled trout, skin removed
1
cup milk
1
teaspoon Creole Spices
1 cup flour
8 tablespoons butter
½ cup sliced almonds
Juice of one lemon
2 tablespoons parsley, minced
Salt and pepper, to taste
HOW TO PREP
Season the filets with salt and pepper and dip into the milk before
dredging the flour that has been mixed with the Creole spices.
In a large sauté pan on medium high with 4 tablespoons butter, cook
the filets until golden brown on each side. Remove the fish and place
of a serving plate or platter.
Add the remaining butter and cook the butter so that it is swirling in
the pan cooking evenly so that it begins to take on a brownish hew.
Once it begins to do this lower the heat to medium-low and add the
almonds, allowing them to brown while slowly stirring.
Once the almonds are uniformly brown add the lemon juice, parsley
and a dash of salt. Serve the butter and almonds over each filet of fish
immediately.
TROUT MEUNIERE VARIATION
For Trout Meuniére, follow the exact same recipe but omit the almonds. In
traditional French cooking, the fish would be lightly dredged in the flour
and cooked in butter — often a whole fish, but in New Orleans we prefer
to use the skinless trout fillet. Dipped in a light egg wash before dredging
in the flour, this gives the fish a slightly thicker crust.
Besh Big Easy
John Besh’s fourth
cookbook is available
at local bookstores
and online. It’s filled
with downhome reci-
pes for mustard-fried
catfish, whole roasted
snapper, Grandaddy’s
Skillet Cornbread and
other meals Besh
grew up with. Find all
of the ingredients at
any Rouses Market.
on lazy afternoons and cast lines and shoot the bull, and Besh
marvels at how Dudley can identify a species of fish on his line
before he even pulls it out of the water, just by the way it feels and
fights on the line.
“He’s a bass fisherman that has adopted a very instinctual style of
fishing where he doesn’t need live bait,” Besh says of his angling
mentor. “He knows what it is and how to deal with that fish versus
— like me — where I’m just yanking and yanking!”
For all his years and experience, Besh will not attest to being a top
grade fisherman. He jokes that his wife Jenny calls him “Two Fish
Besh” for his occasional lack of proficiency. But it’s hard to think
anyone loves the sport more than he does, or cares more about the
state and health of our waters, estuaries, marshlands and lakes.
Behind the aw-shucks demeanor is a man committed to Louisiana
lifestyle and Louisiana cuisine. All in all, it seems like a good life to
be John Besh.
Business is booming. Catfish are jumping. It’s springtime, and the
living is easy.
photo by
Rush Jagoe