Cutting fish on a fillet is not an easy task at first glance. However, the devil is not so terrible as he is painted. Filet making is the process of separating fish meat from the skin and spine, as well as from the inedible parts: head, tail, fins and small bones. Undoubtedly, for the first time, cutting will seem like a feat, but for the fifth or tenth time, you will not notice how the fish turns into a fillet.
Pick your recipe
You will need
- • Any fish.
- • Two knives: short and filet long.
Instruction manual
1
Take any fish (you can not gut or clean it in advance), make an incision around the gills and spread the lower abdomen so as not to hurt the intestines. This is best done with the tip of a knife.
2
Tear out the gills and take out the intestines, clean from blood clots and flush the inside of the fish with water.
3
With a knife, make an incision near the head that reaches the bone. At this stage, it is important not to decapitate the fish, but only to cut the meat to the spine.
4
Make an incision along the back of the fish, from head to tail. It will turn out oblique, as there will be a fin on the way, which should be carefully circled, and then continue to cut clearly along the back. The closer the knife blade goes to the spine, the more meat will remain on the fillet. At first, in order to make sure that the blade has not moved away from the seeds, you can carefully lift up the cut piece of meat and look.
5
When the cut fillet can already be held by hand, it can be bent and with a knife carefully continue to cut the meat along the border with the bones. As a result, you should get two pieces of fish: one completely cleared of bones, the second will leave the spine with the rest of the bones.
6
Turn the fish upside down and do the above again. A slightly simpler method - without turning the fish over, use the tip of the knife blade to tear off short bones from the meat along the entire piece. 3–5 cm from the tail, push the blade deeper and slide it towards the tail, and cut the skin from the bottom where the meat ends. Thus, the tail of the spine will separate from the meat. Next, lift the cut tail, and with a knife, carefully separate the spine from the meat. That is, instead of cutting the meat from the spine, as you did earlier, you gently cut the spine from the meat.
7
Cut off all the fins left on the fillet.
8
As a result of the manipulations you should have two pieces of fish fillet on the skin and skeleton. The latter can be put on the ear or given to a cat, and small bones should be removed from the fillet and the meat should be separated from the skin. Bones can be removed with nails, tweezers or not at all.
9
To separate the meat from the skin, take a filet knife if you have one. Put a piece of fillet on a table or flat board, skin down, with one hand press the skin to the table, and with the other lead the knife parallel to the table along the skin, separating the meat from it. It is important that the knife blade runs exactly parallel to the surface on which the fish lies - if it lifts up, the meat will remain on the skin, if on the contrary it goes down, cut through the skin.
10
The filet is ready. Cut into pieces convenient for you and use as you wish.
Useful advice
To prepare the fillet, two types of knives are most often used - short and filet. However, if there were none at hand, it is better to use a knife with a long, narrow and flexible blade, or choose the one that is closest to this description from the available tools. This will speed up and facilitate the process of separating meat from the skin.
Related article
How to cook fish fillet deliciously