Some­how as I’ve got­ten old­er, the num­ber of pills I have to take has grown. I even had to get a week­ly pill hold­er to keep me on track. In the mix are cal­ci­um and vit­a­min D, vit­a­min B‑12 (I’m most­ly veg­e­tar­i­an), and a blood pres­sure pill. So under­stand­ably I am resist­ing tak­ing omega-3s. Plen­ty of good rea­sons to take them, includ­ing reduced heart dis­ease risk and inflam­ma­tion. But I don’t want to add anoth­er pill, omega‑3 fish oil and my stom­ach don’t like each oth­er, and I would rather eat my omega-3s in food.

Pill box

A hand­ful of foods sup­ply omega-3s, most­ly fat­ty fish such as salmon and a few nuts and seeds (wal­nuts and flax are best sources). My go-to fish for home cook­ing, steel­head trout, also is high in omega-3s. Farmed steel­head also gets a thumbs up from Seafood Watch for being raised with envi­ron­men­tal­ly sound best prac­tices. I buy my steel­head from Cost­co, cut it into half-pound fil­lets, wrap it in plas­tic wrap, vac­u­um-pack it, and freeze the pack­ets. When I want to use it, I remove the plas­tic wrap (unless I for­get, which is a bad idea), sea­son the top, and cook it straight from frozen and skin-side down in the oven or on the grill. It’s espe­cial­ly good on the grill because the skin sticks to the grate while the fil­let lifts off eas­i­ly. Indy the geri­atric dog loves the skin so it’s win-win.

pistachio salmon 2

A local seafood store, Mt. Kisco Seafood, gen­er­ous­ly shared its recipe for pis­ta­chio-crust­ed salmon and it works great for steel­head trout too. Rarely con­tent with leav­ing a recipe as is, I tin­kered with this one too. It’s real­ly easy and real­ly yum­my, and the pis­ta­chios hold up nice­ly to the heat. I used salt-and-pep­per fla­vored pis­ta­chios and they were excel­lent! The recipe works with wal­nuts too but at a slight­ly low­er tem­per­a­ture since their smoke point is low­er.

pistachio salmon 1

Nut-crust­ed steel­head trout
Serves 4

2 1/2‑pound fil­lets steel­head trout or salmon, skin on

1 table­spoon Dijon mus­tard

1/2 cup chopped pis­ta­chios or wal­nuts

  1. Pre­heat the oven to 400° F or pre­pare a char­coal or gas grill.
  2. Place the fil­let skin-side down on a rimmed bak­ing sheet. Spread with the mus­tard, using more if desired. Top with the nuts, press­ing them onto the mus­tard. Light­ly salt if the nuts are unsalt­ed.

pistachio salmon 3

3. Bake or grill until fish flakes eas­i­ly with a fork or sharp knife, up to 30 min­utes. Cut each fil­let into 2 pieces and serve.