Seafood Facts

Cleaning and deboning fish

Knowing how to prepare fresh fish and seafood will give you more options when buying fish.

In order to be an educated consumer, and in case you ever have the good fortune to come upon a whole fish (whole fish stay fresh longer than fillets and steaks), you'll benefit from knowing a thing or two about the cuts of fish and how to prepare them.

• What You will Need
• Dressing (Or Is it Undressing)
• Filleting Fish
• Skinning Fish
• Making Fish Steaks

(See Preparing Other Seafood for the lowdown on preparing seafood that comes in shells or isn't anything like a fish.)

What You Will Need To Fillet Fish
You will need a few essential tools to successfully clean and debone fresh fish:

• A razor-sharp, highly flexible filleting knife to create fillets. (A nine-inch blade should do the job, unless you're dissecting a whole marlin or tuna.)

• A large, sharp chef's knife, to cut through bones.

• A strawberry huller, a set of needle-nose pliers, or a pair of tweezers to remove those tiny, needle-like fish bones

• Heavy-duty kitchen scissors, for removing fins

(A fish scaler is one of those fun but superfluous gadgets that just take up space in your kitchen drawers.)

Scaling Round Fish
While the delicately-scaled salmon do not require scaling, other fish have plate armor which will need to be removed. (Eating scales is not a pleasant experience!)

Simply hold the fish by its tail, and scrape away from you with a knife. This should lift and remove the scales from your fish.

Dressing (Or Is it Undressing?)

The preparing and dissecting of fish is called "dressing", although the fish will look anything but dressed when you are finished with it.

For preparation purposes, it is useful to divide fish into two types. Rounder-bodied fish, such as salmon and cod, are known as "round." Their"flat" counterparts, such as sole and flounder, are known as "flat".

Preparing round fish

Take your scaled round fish:

1. Wash the flesh thoroughly.
2. Either trim the tail into a neat V-shape (prefered by chefs) or remove it altogether, using your kitchen scissors.
3. Cut off the fins with scissors.
4. Place the fish on one side, pressing down with your hand flat on the top side.
5. Slice the fish up the belly from base to head, with the sharp blade of your heavy-duty chef's knife. (Be extra careful not to cut too deeply. Inside the fish's belly, its "viscera" or intestines contain bitter acids that might contaminate the fish's delicate flavor if pierced by the knife.)
6. Gutting can be accomplished with minimum mess, despite what your camping experience of preparing fish may suggest. Simply, reach into the belly, grab the "viscera" and pull down toward the tail. It should detach cleanly.
7. Look inside the fish, and you'll see the kidney -- a small white sack lodged against the backbone. Scrape it out with your knife.
8. Run cold water inside the bared belly, scraping away any clinging blood or membranes.
9. If you (like most Americans) prefer your fish headless, cut straight through the backbone to remove it.

Now your fish is ready for preparing whole.

Preparing Flat Fish

You can dress a flat fish such as flounder in much the same way, washing and scaling it, removing the tail and fins.

Preparing the whole (unfilleted) fish is easy: simply cut off its head and press on the body to force out those unsightly innards. Then, rinse the cavity well to remove any lingering blood.

If you intend to stuff a whole fish, you'll need to remove its backbone:

1. Start on one end of the fish, inserting the filleting knife between the flesh and the outside of the rib bones.
2. Work your way around to the other side, separating flesh from bones.
3. Slide the knife under the backbone and pull it out, with the rib bones attached.
4. Begin stuffing your fish.

Filleting Fish

A fillet is the most common (and popular) cut of fish in the United States. However, whole fish holds its shape and flavor better than fillets, as anyone who has ever eaten a freshly caught fish can tell you.

So, your fish will arrive fresher to the table if you buy it whole, straight from your fishmonger, and then fillet it yourself. (See How to Buy fresh Fish for advice on how to find the right fishmonger.)

To fillet a whole fish:

1. Rinse it off under cold running water and grab your preparation tools.

2. Lay the fish with its dark side down on the cutting board. (You may wish to leave this bottom layer of skin on, as unskinned fish is less likely to flake apart when cooked. Leaving the some skin on is particulaly beneficial if poaching or grilling.)

3. Using your free hand, press down on the fish to pin it to the board.

4. Slice down the backside of the head with your chef's knife, as if beginning to cleave the fish into its two halves.

5. Arrange your thin filleting knife (preferably very sharp) inside this cut, position it neatly between the fish's bones and its flesh, and cut from head to tail. Keep the bottom of the blade tight against the bones, so that these are separated from the fillet.

6. (Make long, even strokes. Do not saw back and forth, which could result in a jaggedly edged cut. The flatter you keep your knife, the sharper its blade, and the more sweeping your strokes, the neater your fillet will appear, and the better it'll keep its shape during cooking.)

7. When the fillet is all but freed from the fish, hold it in one hand and snip it loose at the tail, holding the knife blade tilted downward for this last cut.

8. Cut away the "comb" of tiny bones that will edge your fillet.

9. Once one fillet has been cut from one side of the fish, turn it over and proceed as with the dark side up.

10. Begin by making a shallow cut in the top of the fish's head, bringing the tip of your knife blade just shy of the backbone, and continue as you did with the first fillet.

Deboning your fillets

Once you've cut the two long fillets from your whole fish, you'll need to eliminate any bones that you find in the meat.

1. Start by cutting out the rib bones, which will run across the front of each fillet.

2. Slice under whatever bones you see, keeping the blade tight against them to avoid sacrificing tasty meat, and pull up gently until they detach and you can pull them out with your fingers.

3. Find the tiny "pin bones" by rubbing from head to tail with your fingertips, massaging gently to detect their sharp edges. Typically, these run down the fillet's center.

4. You can eradicate them by cutting on either side in a shallow V, and removing this narrow strip of meat, bones included. (Appropriately, this is called a V-cut).

5. For any stray bones, use your fish tweezers or needle-nose pliers. As with splinters, grab careful hold of the stray edge and pull firmly but with a gliding ease so that the whole bone is removed.

Skinning Fish

To skin a fillet:

1. Place it skin-side down on the cutting board.

2. With the knife held at a slight angle, begin approximately one quarter of an inch from the tail end and cut the flesh from the skin.

3. As you did in filleting, keep the blade as close to flat as possible.

4. Hold the tail flap with your free hand to steady the fish, and work the blade of the knife up the length of the fish, separating the skin from the flesh by maneuvering the blade in a gentle sawing motion.

If your knife is sharp and your hold firm, the skin should cut fairly easily from the flesh.

To skin a whole fish:

1. Make a shallow incision at the base of the fish's tail, without cutting through any meat.

2. Scraping with the blade of the knife, free enough skin to allow you to grasp it firmly with your fingers.

3. With your free hand, hold the fish's body down, and with the other, pull the skin toward and over the head (almost as if you were, indeed, undressing it).

Making Steaks

To steak a fish:

1. Lay the whole fish on its side on a cutting board.

2. Starting with the head, make approximately 1 inch thick slices, moving down to the tail side. To cut through the fish's thick backbone, you may need to bang your blade with a rubber or wooden mallet.

3. Cut fillets from the narrow tail end of the fish, until neat steaks are no longer possible.

Preparing Other Seafood

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