By Fishing trip to Cocodrie with Rémy, Luc, and Pierre. Annual tradition now, year three. The camp, the marsh, the mosquitoes that greet us like old enemies. Boo Trosclair's dock, the sunset, the silence that only exists where the road ends and the water begins.
Rémy caught the biggest fish of the trip again — a 24-inch redfish that matched last year's record. He's seven and already has a personal best that's tied, which means he spent the rest of the weekend trying to break it, casting with the determination of a boy who doesn't understand the concept of "enough" because he's Cajun and we don't do "enough." Luc caught nine fish total. Pierre caught twelve. I caught seven. Nobody kept score officially, but everybody kept score privately, because Beaumonts are competitive about everything including, apparently, fishing against their own family.
I fried trout on the camp stove both nights — cornmeal-crusted, lemon butter, hot sauce on the table. The simplicity of camp cooking is its own kind of genius: you take what the water gives you, clean it on the dock, cook it on the stove, eat it on the porch. No recipe. No plan. Just the fish and the fire and the family and the sound of the marsh at night, which is frogs and insects and the occasional splash of a gator and the low hum of something larger — something that sounds like the earth breathing, if the earth breathed in Louisiana French.
Pierre talked this trip. Five whole sentences, spread across two days. "Fish are biting south." "Pass the salt." "Your boy casts like Joey." "Need more bait." "Good trip." Twenty words. A record. A memoir. A man who speaks in telegrams and builds in silence and fishes with the patience of the bayou itself. I love my brother. I don't say it. He doesn't need me to. We know.
Both nights at the camp, I fried trout in cornmeal and served it with hot sauce and lemon butter — no plan, no fuss, just the fish and the fire. But what I kept reaching for, the thing that turned a plate of fried fish into an actual meal on that porch, was something simple and buttery to drag through whatever pooled on the plate. These Butter Dips are exactly that: no camp kitchen is ever too basic to make them, and nothing soaks up lemon butter alongside a mess of fried trout quite like a strip of golden, pull-apart biscuit dough baked right in its own butter bath. Rémy ate four of them. Pierre ate five and said nothing. That tracks.
Butter Dips
Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 15 min | Total Time: 25 min | Servings: 9
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter
- 1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 2/3 cup whole milk
Instructions
- Preheat and melt. Heat oven to 450°F. Place butter in a 9x9-inch baking pan and set it in the oven just until the butter melts, about 2 minutes. Remove and set aside — do not let it brown.
- Mix the dough. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Pour in the milk and stir with a fork until a shaggy dough just comes together. Do not overmix.
- Shape the dips. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and gently pat or roll to a roughly 1/2-inch-thick rectangle, about 8x4 inches. Cut into 9 strips with a knife or bench scraper.
- Dip in butter. One at a time, dip each strip in the melted butter in the pan, turning to coat both sides. Arrange the strips in the pan in a single layer; it’s fine if they touch.
- Bake. Bake for 13–15 minutes until the tops are golden and the edges are crisp. Serve hot, straight from the pan.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 128 | Protein: 3g | Fat: 6g | Carbs: 16g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 275mg