Last night’s dinner was a big success, combining the idea from Whitney Chen’s excellent piece on roasting whole fish with this side dish from Dinner: A Love Story.
I topped and tailed a bunch of green beans, then tossed them with a good quarter cup of chopped almonds and maybe a tablespoon of chopped mint (if I had more, I would have used more). I took my two boneless whole trout out of the fridge, salted and peppered their insides and outsides, stuffed them with sliced lemon, sliced shallot, and a few sprigs of thyme, and rubbed them with a quickly made garlic oil (i.e., microplaned garlic stirred into olive oil).
I heated up a little too much olive oil in the cast iron pan over medium heat, then added the green beans, almonds, and mint to the pan. After arranging them relatively evenly into a bed, and after they started really sizzling, I laid the trout over top. Then into a 400º oven for fifteen minutes, after which the fish had reached its requisite 145º internal temp.
The fish was perfectly cooked, the combination of green beans with the almonds was really wonderful, and I love that the whole thing only dirtied one pan. I ended up making some simple steam-sauteed spinach as well, so there was a little more dishwashing to do, but nothing too serious.
