Paiche

We wanted fish for dinner, so I stopped by Whole Foods after work.  Paiche was on sale.  I had never heard of that type of fish, but the fishmonger told me that it was a mild white fish (and new to Whole Foods).  We tried it. . . sauteeing it with butter, garlic, salt and pepper.  I would buy it again!  It reminded me a little bit of Chilean sea bass.  Good texture and not a strong fishy flavor.

I looked up paiche on wikipedia.com:
The arapaima, pirarucu, or paiche (Arapaima gigas) is a South American tropical freshwater fish. It is one of the largest freshwater fish in the world.

Apparently it can grow to be 500 lbs.  It is unusual in that it is an air-breathing animal and it lives in the shallow, muddy waters of river-beds, popping up every 15 to 20 minutes for air. Marine scientists consider the paiche to be a living fossil, a direct link back to the Jurassic period.

It was an ingredient on Iron Chef with Masaharu Morimoto vs. Justin Bogle.  Maybe I'd know what paiche was if we had cable because The Food Network would be on 24/7!