Ingrid and I have explored Vermillion Rockfish from the Tuna Harbor Dockside Market in
downtown San Diego a few times now. Vermillion Rockfish are brilliant orange fish with mottled black spots that also give them a dingy look. Like most fish we pick up at the market, the Vermillion Rockfish was completely unfamiliar to us when we picked our first one and brought it home. Vermillion Rockfish are part of the "shelf" rockfish, meaning they are found in the deeper waters of the continental shelf, which accounts for the bloated stomach of our first Vermillion. In fact, by the time we got our Vermillion home, it had already regurgitated a few small langoustine-like creatures from its last meal.
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| Vermillion Rockfish |
First things first, rockfish are part of a family of fish that have venomous spines. Vermillion have mildly venomous spines - so care must be taken when cleaning and gutting. Compared to the Sheephead, cleaning and gutting the Vermillion was easy. Medium scales came out very easy - and a relatively straight forward body cavity that made cleaning straight-forward.
As far as taste, Vermillion Rockfish is a delicate white fish whose taste is mildly and pleasant. As with all fish that we are exploring for the firs time, we stuck to pan frying fillets with salt and pepper (the best way to taste the pure flavor of the fish) - but the Vermillion Rockfish could be prepared with any method suitable for a delicate whitefish. Overall, our Vermillion Rockfish experiences were very tasty. Cleaning and gutting were much easier than with the other fish I've practiced on to date. And the yield (weight of fillet to weight of whole fish) has been excellent.
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