Honesty, with trout

This whole blogging thing can be a bit tricky.  Take, for instance, how personal I ought to be when I write.  Oh, sure, I can tell stories about meals I've eaten and cakes I've baked, but do we really want to get down to the nitty-gritties?  It seems to me a tenuous balance between unrelatable soap box soliloquizing and baring my soul for the world to see.

But I like you, and I want to be honest with you.  I am currently in the unenviable position of looking for employment.  The story of how I got to where I am today feels long and complicated to me, but I don't suppose it's so different from most such stories: mine is a tale filled with hopes and disappointments, with surprises and difficult decisions.  The good news is that I had an interview yesterday.  The better news is that after the interview, I had the rest of the afternoon free to think about dinner.  The best news is that on my walk home from the interview, I picked up some rainbow trout from the fish monger.

I don't cook fish all that often.  Oh, sure, I like a nice fillet of salmon or a good cod omelet as much as the next girl, but I'm much more likely to order fish when I eat out than to actually cook it at home.  It's just such a long process*.  You have to make a trip to the fish monger, and then you have to determine which fish you want, and then the fish has to be cooked that night, and even if you buy fillets you may have to deal with bones, and because you almost never cook fish, you freak out when it takes longer to cook than anticipated and poke it about a million times to check for doneness... when restaurants are willing to go to all that trouble for me, it's difficult to decide to do it for myself.  But sometimes, when I have a lot on my mind, like, say, when I've just had a job interview, I want to take a little more thought and care with my dinner.  Sometimes, I want fish.

On the rare occasions when I do cook fish, I almost always use the same method: en papillote.  For one thing, it's so fun to say: it sounds like "on poppy-oat," only more French.  It is, in fact, a French method for preparing fish or meats where the raw product is placed in a parchment paper pouch ("parchment paper pouch" is fun to say, too, especially three times fast) with aromatics and baked at a high heat.  In the process, the fish steams itself in its own juices, and the flavors meld together.  Plus, you get to do some pseudo-origami, and if that's not a reason for a cooking method, I don't know what is.

And the best part is that, despite all my complaining about the difficulty of preparing fish, it's actually very easy, as simple as wrapping and baking and eating, hopefully with a minimum of doneness-test-pokes.  And that gives you more time for drinking a glass of Sauvignon Blanc.  Or, uh, submitting more job applications.  It's tough work, this job hunt thing, but if I'm brave and honest, maybe I'll get something out of it.  Like, you know, a second helping of trout.

*Yes, I realize this is coming from the same voice who, just a few short weeks ago, advocated spending upwards of eight hours preparing cassoulet.  But those are eight hours spent in the comfort and convenience of your own home, and plus there's no raw fishy smell, so it's totally different.

 Trout en papillote with lemon tarragon leeks

2 eight-ounce fillets of trout
2 large leeks
1-2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced.
2 lemons
1 tablespoon fresh tarragon, roughly chopped
salt, pepper

Check the fillets for any bones, removing them if you find any.  Keep chilled on ice until ready to cook.

Wash the leeks thoroughly, discarding the tough, dark green upper sections.  Cut them into quarters lengthwise, and cut the quarters into half-inch slices.  In a large frying pan, saute the leeks in the olive oil over medium heat with a little salt and pepper, stirring frequently, just until the leeks begin to turn translucent, about 3 minutes.  Remove the pan from the heat, and stir in the garlic, 3/4 of the tarragon, and a good squeeze of lemon juice from half of one of the lemons. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.  Tear off two large sheets of parchment paper.  In the center of each sheet, create a bed of half the leeks.  On top of the leeks, place a trout fillet, skin side down, and season the fish with salt, pepper, and the remaining tarragon.  Take the second lemon, and cut it into thin slices.  Place the slices over the top of the fillet.

Now comes the fun part: creating your pouch.  I tend to bring the edges of the paper together over the fish lengthwise, fold them down together, and then tuck in the ends.  There are a surprising number of videos out there on how to fold a papillote, though, and there may well be better methods than mine, so if you're unsure how to proceed, I encourage you to have a look.

Once wrapped, it's into the oven.  For a smaller, individual sized portion (around, say, 4 ounces) the cooking time will be about 10 minutes.  With these larger fillets, it took more like 20 minutes.  In any case, the fish is done when it flakes easily on a fork.

Serve immediately.  If you happen to serve it atop jasmine rice and alongside some steamed broccolini, so much the better.