Species sheet · The Edible River
Arctic char
Red fire of the coldest lakes on Earth.
- Roasted whole, stuffed with herbs
- Fillets pan-fried skin-side down with brown butter
- Cured gravlax-style or cold-smoked
- In French
- Omble chevalier
- Scientific name
- Salvelinus alpinus
- In the water
- A salmonid of cold, deep lakes from the Alps to the Arctic, living near the bottom in the coolest water and rising onto the gravel to spawn.
- Season & buying
- In lakes, fishing closes in autumn and winter during spawning; the rest of the year much of the char comes from cold-water farms in Savoie or Iceland.
- Common length
- ~40 cm
- How to identify it
- Dark green to bluish back, flanks scattered with pale spots
Orange to bright red belly in the spawning season
Lower fins edged with white
On the plate
Pink to red flesh, fine and melting, somewhere between trout and salmon, with a rare delicacy.
Avoid: Cooking it through: the flesh dries out, so serve it pink and almost pearly at the centre.
It is the northernmost freshwater fish on the planet, living in Arctic lakes that stay frozen for most of the year.
In Umay recipes
One Umay recipe calls for it.
