What is Sablefish?
Sablefish is a black, smooth-skinned fish harvested from the cold, deep waters off the coast of British Colombia. In the past the fish was not treasured for its fine flesh, but instead heavily smoked – and often coloured a reddish-yellow – and called black cod, and still is some areas, even though it is not related to that species. In recent years a growing number of restaurant chefs and knowledgeable home cooks have discovered and grown to love sablefish’s pearly white flesh, large velvety flakes and sweet, rich flavour, as is or lightly smoked. The wide range of ways the fish can be cooked, from steaming to baking to pan-frying, has also added to sablefish’s growing popularity. For quick tips on cooking and handling sablefish, pick up our brochure in the seafood department. For recipes to cook it, enter sablefish into recipe collection search engine.
Many a seafood aficionado expounds the virtues of smoked black cod. He knows which market has the best selection and which menu does his favorite fish the most justice. What he probably doesn’t know is that the black cod he so enjoys is no cod at all. It’s a sablefish (anoplopoma fimbria). And although sablefish does resemble cod, it does not belong to the codfish family. It’s a member, instead, of the Anoplopomatidae family, a group of fish confined to the North Pacific. Although this premium quality whitefish can attain a length of 40 inches and may weight up to 40 pounds, the average commercially-caught sablefish measures about two feet long and weighs less than 10 pounds. Thanks to its rich oil content, Alaska sablefish is exceptionally flavorful and an excellent fish for smoking. Indeed, most of the sablefish consumed in this country is smoked. Sablefish came to be appreciated several centuries ago by the Makah Indians who fashioned kelp fishing lines and hemlock hooks to capture
