Cornmeal-Crusted Trout with Hazelnut Butter

Pan-fried trout with a crunchy cornmeal crust and a rich brown butter hazelnut sauce is the kind of dish that looks like restaurant cooking but comes together in half an hour on a weeknight.

The trout gets dredged in a cornmeal-flour mixture and cooked in batches, two minutes per side in butter and oil. That butter-oil combo is key: the oil raises the smoke point so the butter doesn’t burn, and the butter brings the flavor that oil alone can’t match.

Once the fish is resting on a platter, the same skillet gets wiped clean and loaded with fresh butter and chopped hazelnuts. The nuts toast in the foaming butter until brown, then lemon juice goes in and boils down with the browned bits into a quick pan sauce. Parsley, a squeeze of salt and pepper, and it all gets poured over the fish.

Pro Tips

• Wipe out burned bits from the skillet between batches and before making the sauce. Burned flour turns bitter and will ruin the hazelnut butter.
• Don’t crowd the pan. Cooking in two batches ensures a crispy crust. Overcrowding steams the fish instead of frying it.
• Add the lemon juice to the hot butter carefully. It will sputter and foam aggressively.
• Skin-on trout crisps better than skinless in the cornmeal crust.

Variations

• Swap hazelnuts for slivered almonds for a classic trout amandine twist.
• Add a tablespoon of capers to the butter sauce along with the lemon juice for a piccata-style finish.
• Use catfish or tilapia fillets if trout isn’t available.