Trout Meuniere

The menu for son daughter-in-law dinner was somewhat contentious. I got a text from son on Sunday morning after church, when he knew I might be prowling around Safeway on my way home from church. "Can we have corned beef and cabbage?" he demanded. Since it was the day after Saint Patrick's Day, corned beeves were in abundance in the meat department. However, the answer was regretfully, no.
Ever since the end of February, I have been on a diet known as the anti-inflammatory diet. Some of you long time readers, (all two of you) may have noticed a certain lack of commitment to the blog. Well, this is one of the reasons why. I have arthritis in my hips and in my toes and pains in my shoulders and every place else. Finally after repeated urging by my daughter, who also is on a diet avoiding certain foods, I took the plunge.
What it means is, the dieter is more or less restricted to fish, chicken, grains and vegetables. Also eggs and fruit. No pasta, cheese, red meat, cake, bread, etc, etc. It is way more healthy and when I stuck to it faithfully, I lost weight and had much more energy. However, The New York Times Heritage Cookbook and health really don't coincide. The recipes date from a time when people got much more exercise in the course of their daily lives and had to eat to fuel the engine.
So I haven't been cooking much, at least out of the cookbook.
Also, I have been working 12 hour days in the service of the DC Public Schools which doesn't allow a lot of time for pouring through the cookbook, tracking down ingredients, etc. etc. etc. When one has to create a phonics lesson, a lesson for a book to be read aloud to the class which is supposed to illustrate some point of literary craft such as character traits, a second phonics lesson for the children who need it, and a math lesson every day, not much time remains for breathing, exercise, or even chatting on the telephone to one's own children.
My daughter got justifiably upset when I told her last week I didn't feel like talking to anyone.
Inside my head, I was yelling, "I don't want to talk to anyone. Not you, Elvis, the Pope, the ghost of Lyndon Johnson (read more about him later), Harrison Ford or the President. I just want to be left ALONE!" So, that's been my life for the past few weeks.

However, Trout Meuniere fit in more or less with the diet. (More because it was not red meat, less because it used flour and milk. So, instead of corned beef and cabbage, we had that for dinner when the yms came over. It is easy to make, but do not let the fish man sell you more than you need. What you will need is not a whole trout for each person, but more like half a trout for each person, and maybe one extra trout half for seconds. As fish go, trout is reasonably inexpensive, so you will not be looking at a bank loan or a maxing out of the credit card to pay for your meal.

Trout Meuniere

6 trout fillets

1 cup milk

1/2 cup flour

salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1/3 cup vegetable or peanut oil

1/4 cup butter

chopped parsley

lemon wedges

1. Dip the fillets in the milk and let stand until ready to cook.

2. Blend the flour with salt and pepper. Drain the fillets, but do not dry. Dip them in seasoned flour.

3. Heat the oil in a large skillet and cook the fillets until golden brown, turning once. Transfer to a warm serving pallet. Wipe out the skillet.

4. Add the butter to the skillet and cook until butter just begins to brown. Pour the butter over the fish, sprinkle with parsley and garnish with lemon wedges. Makes three to six servings.