Steamed Steelhead with Mushrooms

I based this recipe off the “foiru yaki” recipe in Shizuo Tsuji’s Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art. It is basically baked steelhead in a foil packet with mushrooms. Really simple, really good.

A few tricks elevate this dish, which of course can be done with salmon or other trout. As for substitutes for steelhead, I’d first recommend sockeye salmon, then large trout fillets, then silver salmon; king salmon may be too fatty for this recipe.

I originally used matsutake mushrooms for this dish, but I only had dried and they were too chewy. If you can get fresh matsutake by all means use them, but I can’t really recommend dried. Use fresh shiitake mushrooms instead.

I happen to grow Japanese mibuna, a type of mustard green, but you could sub in broccoli raab or regular mustard greens.

Oh, and the trout caviar? I made it from the same steelhead. You can buy it online or in many good grocery stores. You could omit it altogether, but I like the color and pop you get with the eggs.

Serves 2

  • 2 steelhead steaks
  • Butter
  • Sake
  • Kosher salt
  • 1 lemon
  • 1/2 pound fresh shiitake or matsutake mushrooms
  • 2 teaspoons trout or salmon caviar
  • Small bunch mibuna, mustard greens or broccoli raab
  • 1 tablespoon sesame oil
  1. Coat the fish in sake and sprinkle with salt. Let rest at room temperature for 15 minutes.
  2. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 475 degrees.
  3. To assemble, butter the center of a double-width of foil and place a steelhead steak in the center. Top with some mushrooms, a pat of butter, another splash of sake and two thin slices of lemon. Seal tightly. Repeat for the second piece of fish.
  4. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes.
  5. With about 5 minutes to go, get the sesame oil hot in a pan and saute the mustard greens with a little salt. You want them to still be bright green, so toss and cook quickly over high heat.
  6. To serve, open the packets. Place some greens on the plate and top with the fish, setting the mushrooms to the side. Spoon a teaspoon of steelhead caviar on top of each piece of fish. Serve at once, with steamed rice and a lager beer.

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