Cornmeal Coated Brook Trout

This is how you cook trout fresh from the stream: dredged in cornmeal and fried until the crust crackles. The coating is the draw, gritty, golden, and crisp around sweet, flaky trout.

Before any of that, the fillets take a soak in dark beer. It’s a quiet step that pays off, mellowing any muddy edge wild fish can carry and leaving behind a faint malty sweetness.

The breading runs in three stages: seasoned flour cut with cornstarch for extra crunch, beaten egg to glue it all on, then a thick coat of cornmeal. Skip the cornstarch and the crust comes out softer.

A shallow fry in light oil is all it takes to turn each fillet bronze and crisp. Serve with tartar sauce, and chase it with hot sauce if you like a little heat.

Chef Tips

• Pat the beer-soaked fillets only slightly so the flour grips, but leave them a touch damp so the breading adheres in three even layers.
• Keep one hand for wet and one for dry as you bread, or you’ll end up with clumpy fingers and a patchy crust.
• Get the oil shimmering-hot before the fish goes in. Cool oil makes the cornmeal soak up grease instead of crisping.
• Fry just until golden and the fish flakes; trout is thin and cooks fast, so don’t walk away.

Variations

• Stir a little cayenne or Old Bay into the cornmeal for a spicier, Cajun-leaning crust.
• No brook trout? Catfish, perch, or any mild freshwater fillet takes well to the same treatment.