Halibut and Lingcod are different fish, but they're close enough in the kitchen to stand in for one another.
Pleuronectidae
Halibut
Halibut is the largest of the flatfish and the one most people meet as a thick white steak rather than a thin fillet — a Pacific halibut can pass 200 kg, so it is butchered into cross-cut portions with the grain running through them like a piece of meat. The flesh is snow white, very lean and unusually firm, in large sheets that hold together on a grill where sole or plaice would fall apart. That leanness is also the trap: there is almost no fat to protect it, and a halibut portion taken two minutes too far goes from silky to dry and cottony with no warning. Cook it to just-opaque and rest it. Two species are sold under the name and they are close enough to be used interchangeably in the kitchen: Atlantic halibut (Hippoglossus hippoglossus), heavily depleted and now mostly farmed, and Pacific halibut (H. stenolepis), line-caught in Alaska and British Columbia under one of the better-managed quota systems in the world. Spanish and Portuguese speakers should watch one distinction carefully: the fletán negro or alabote-da-Gronelândia sold cheaply across southern Europe is Greenland halibut (Reinhardtius hippoglossoides), a different, much oilier, softer fish — not the same thing as the fletán or alabote in this entry, and not a substitute for it in a recipe that wants firm white flesh.
Full guide →Hexagrammidae
Lingcod
Lingcod is neither a ling nor a cod. Ophiodon elongatus is a greenling — a big-headed, heavily toothed ambush predator of the rocky North Pacific coast, from Baja California to the Gulf of Alaska — and the name is a nineteenth-century settler's guess that stuck. It is one of the best white fish on that coast and barely known off it. The flesh is dense and large-flaked, firmer and more forgiving than cod, holding its shape in a hot pan or on a grill where cod would collapse, and it is the standard fish of Pacific Northwest fish and chips. Its oddest feature is the colour: perhaps a fifth of the fish caught have flesh that is a startling blue-green, a harmless pigment called biliverdin that comes from the diet and cooks out to pure white. Buyers should know that the same market name is used for entirely different fish elsewhere — in Britain and Scandinavia, ling means Molva molva, a genuine cod relative from the Atlantic — so a recipe calling for lingcod outside North America almost certainly means something else.
Full guide →Both are firm North Pacific white fish sold as thick boneless portions, and lingcod is the considerably cheaper one. Halibut is finer-grained and leaner; lingcod is coarser and slightly more forgiving, which makes it the better choice for a first attempt at grilling a white fish steak.
| Country | Halibut | Lingcod |
|---|
| 🇺🇸United States | Halibut | Lingcod |
| 🇬🇧United Kingdom | Halibut | — |
| 🇫🇷France | Flétan | — |
| 🇪🇸Spain | Fletán | — |
| 🇲🇽Mexico | Halibut | — |
| 🇵🇹Portugal | Alabote | — |
| 🇧🇷Brazil | Halibute | — |
| 🇮🇹Italy | Ippoglosso | — |
| 🇩🇪Germany | Heilbutt | — |
$275.00–$695.00 · Free US shipping (except Hawaii) · Alaska Gold Seafood
Buy halibut thick enough to cook the way it should be
- ·Line-caught Pacific halibut (Hippoglossus stenolepis)
- ·Boneless 8 oz portions
- ·Individually vacuum-sealed, frozen at sea
- ·5, 10 or 20 lb box
Alaska Gold Halibut Portions
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