category: food/groceries: fish: freshwater fish

Rainbow trout, steelhead, ocean trout, zool.: Salmo gairdneri, Salmo irideus, Oncorhynchus mykiss, de.: Regenbogenforelle, fr.: truite arc en ciel, it.: trota iridea, es.: trucha arco iris

Rainbow trout (zool.: Salmo gairdneri) is a species of salmonid. It has a elongate, somewhat compressed body and a blunt head. Between the almost straight caudal fin and the dorsal fin trouts have a fat fin typical for all salmonids. A red band runs along its sides. The silvery body as well as caudal, fat and dorsal fins spot many small black dots. Rainbow trouts can get up to 70 cm long and 7 kg in weight.

Rainbow trouts are migrating fish, originally native to the North American pacific and its feeder rivers. They were introduced to Europe in 1880. Only the ocean going form is called steelhead or ocean trout. Redband trouts are often mistakenly taken for the same fish as rainbow trouts. While they are closely related they do belong to different subspecies.

On the westcoast of the United States two other species of rainbow trouts can be found: The Cutthroat trout (zool.: Salmo clarki) and the yellow to golden coloured Golden trout (zool.: Salmo aguabonita).

Preparation of rainbow trout

The meat of rainbow trouts is light and firm. They are well suited for frying, trout au bleu and smoking.