Fish Cleaning Hell

[Mr. NiceGuy]

Originally Posted by ful-rac

I have one question about your excellent waste-free cleaning and packaging job Tony:

It looks like there is meat missing from the bones that I don't see on the fillets.

After you cut off the fillets, do you scrape the bones with a spoon to remove the rest of the meat?

Is the meat on the tail not good? (OK, 2 questions)

[ful-rac]

Originally Posted by Mr. NiceGuy

I have one question about your excellent waste-free cleaning and packaging job Tony:

It looks like there is meat missing from the bones that I don't see on the fillets.

After you cut off the fillets, do you scrape the bones with a spoon to remove the rest of the meat?

Is the meat on the tail not good? (OK, 2 questions)

Well first of all it’s not waste free...there always is some waste. There is a bit of meat missing, very observant of you to notice. I usually cut a little Off the ends of my fillets to make them square and as uniform as possible. That meat is not thrown away it’s an end cut so it gets used for other purposes like soup. As far as scraping the bones...no I don’t do that. If I want to recover that meat, it’s usually through boiling the bones for soups and or stock.

The tail meat is edible but I usually stay away from it due to the presence of thick tendons that are chewy and not all that good to eat.

[Iceman]

Inspired! I am making that chowder this week, tonight trying some baked with lemon butter sauce and capers.

[Mr. NiceGuy]

Please make a video or describe your approach and technique for removing the fillets so cleanly with so little meat left on the bones. You appear to be an artist at this.

I have watched many youtube videos and there are different opinions about this. My work is OK, but still pretty rough by comparison.

I respect fish and try to render every sumptuous morsel to the best of my ability. I believe in making soup stock from the rest.

What I'm doing works, but I'm not sure my technique is the best. The bones are not as clean as yours after the knife work. What I can't finesse with a knife, I finish by scraping with a spoon.

If you have any favorite youtube links for this, please share.

Halibut is precious, and should be prepared accordingly.

[WestFork]

I've cleaned a lot of fish and I do my very best to deliver boneless, skinless fillets to the chef without wasting any of the catch. From the photos I see I am a clumsy amateur. You are talented, skilled AND have a great ethic for doing this part of fishing right. My hat's off to you. I second the request for video or other tips on how others might learn what you know. :-)

[Bajarick]

Love the pics.....don't love seeing them twice! Wish there were halibut here to practice on!
Rick

[ful-rac]

As much as I hate going to fish cleaning hell...I gotta say I don't mind serving my time there once and a while. I do take pride in my fish cleaning so I force myself to go the extra step. Besides, I get to play with my knives which isn't a bad thing...


Next time I catch a halibut I'll take the extra time to take photos cut by cut, since some of you guys seem interested. Through cleaning many halibut, I come up with some techniques that work pretty well for me, and should work pretty well for you guys too.

In the mean time here's some more "fish cleaning porn" for you fish cleaning porn addicts.


Nothing special here, just a few rockfish I caught yesterday, in that shitty ass weather we had. Those conditions were tough yesterday....

[the dude]

impressively surgical