I was in one of the few remaining Albertson's the other day, and saw something in the fresh seafood counter you don't usually see - steelhead trout fillets! Nicely pink, not as dark as salmon, and usually much better tasting to me. Now I can count on one hand the number of times in my life I have bought fish at the market. Usually I have a bag or two of snapper, snook, redfish, grouper, etc. in the freezer thanks to my dad and the occasional times I get to go fishing. But this last year has been relatively fishless compared to others. Weather, boat problems, health issues, that thing called a job, a mentally ill wife, and numerous other things have conspired against me to keep me relatively fishless!
So, having been without for a while, those steelhead fillets caught my stomach's attention. A steelhead is a rainbow trout that spends part of its life at sea or in the Great Lakes. I've caught rainbows out west in AZ, CO, NV, UT, and in Yellowstone Park when I was a youngster, and have ate steelhead my dad caught in WA and ID. So I knew these are good fish, and so I had the young man behind the counter select 2 nice fillets, which was just over 2lbs total. At $5.99/lb it ain't cheap, but it ain't too bad really.
I broiled those fillets tonight, marinating them first in a concoction of olive oil, Dale's Sauce, cayenne pepper, smoked paprika, and the juice of a tangerine. Then I placed them under the broiler for 5 minutes, pulled them out and turned the oven down to 350, sprinkled some fresh ground pepper, a little sea salt and some parmesan cheese over them, then back in the 350 degree oven for 8 minutes. They came out moist and the meat pulled away from the skin perfectly! It went very well with a batch of cheese grits (using smoked gouda and some sharp cheddar) and some good ol' Bush's baked beans!
Now you won't catch me buying any of the "sutchi" or "swai" or other strangely named fish which are simply renamed southeast asian catfish. And I won't buy grouper, snapper, etc. that I can go catch. But I'll damn sure be ready to buy a couple more steelhead fillets if I find them as good as the ones I ate tonight!
I saw them recently also and was wondering how they were. I've tried steelhead fishing a few times in northern N.Y. and had to wade thru 3 feet of snow to get to the river, lines would freeze in the guides, but get 15-30 pounds or so and put up a hell of a fight.
