Cleaning and Filleting Deep Bodied Fish

Note:

This page applies to deep bodied fish with a hard keel under the belly. Some deep bodied fish, like Tilapia, do not have the keel and our page Cleaning and Filleting Round Fish applies to them.

Fillet or Filet? Both are used - fillet is the English version, and filet is the French from which fillet is derived. Living in California, I use fillet, and so does Wikipedia in the English version.

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Equipment
Scaling & Cleaning a Deep Bodied Fish
Filleting a Deep Bodied Fish
Skinning a Deep Bodied Fish
Fish Soup Stock - using the off-cuts

Equipment

Tools

Naturally, the right tools make a complex job like preparing fish much easier. In the photos to the left are all the tools I use for the job. You may already have some of them.

Kitchen Shears These are for cutting through bones and other tough stuff - an essential tool for every kitchen. The photo example is Oxo.
Filleting Knife: It is very difficult to deal with fish without a razor sharp filleting knife. A boning knife can be used in emergencies, but is not nearly as flexible. The photo example is from Finland - available in many sporting goods outlets.
Sharpening Stone: Filleting knives need sharpening often - and a knife sharpener would destroy your precious knife in moments - the edge is at a shallower angle than regular knives. Actually, I use a larger stone, but this small one fit in the picture better. The stone must be very fine.
Long Nose Pliers: These are essential for pulling gills, pulling ribs from fillets and pulling small bones, as well as the backbone from fish to be stuffed. They should be pretty sturdy. I lubricate the joint in mine with silicone grease which doesn't wash away. As long as they're washed and dried completely right after use they will not rust.
Prep Knife: Your standard cutting and chopping knife for the more brutal cuts, will also serve for skinning fillets if they're not wide. The backside, if strong and sharp edged, is also excellent for scaling fish.
Slicing Knife: This is an old style Turkey slicing knife used for skinning fillets. The new style with straight edge and round point is useless for skinning because it isn't stiff enough to control.
Chinese Cleaver Knife A razor sharp Cleaver Knife is another essential every kitchen should have. With fish, it is used for cutting across the backbone to make sections, cutting frozen fish and fillets, and for splitting fish heads for soup stock. A really good one can also be used for non-fish tasks, such as cutting up pig feet and blocks of frozen foods.
Soft Faced Mallet A nice hefty one is best. This is used to drive the Cleaver Knife through after the edge has been placed where you want the cut. Useful for many non-fish tasks.

Scaling & Cleaning

Here in Southern California, where Asian fish markets abound, any decent market will scale and clean the fish for you at no charge - but some fish sold at an unusually low price are marked, "not cut, no clean" - so it's up to you.

The main difference between a deep bodied fish is that you can't make a cut from vent to under the jaw because the whole bottom of the fish is a hard keel (though some deep fish, like Tilapia, have no keel and are treated the same as round fish).

For our example we'll use a Pompano but any fish of this general shape will be pretty much the same. On our Varieties of Fish page (very large page) there is a link to a "Prep and Cooking" page for each variety of fish. These pages have notes on the exact handling of particular fish.

Important:

when filleting fish you need to have your sharpening stone ready and know how to use it. Fish fillet knives get dull quickly because their razor edge is scraping along hard bones. If you find any reluctance slicing through skin, time to sharpen.

Scaling First scale the fish. Not all fish have scales but kosher fish need at least a few. The pompano pictured has only a few small scales which are easy to scrape off without making a mess. Be particularly careful to remove all scales from along the fins and the collar because you're going to have to make cuts there.

Pros use a fish scaling tool (concentric toothed rings) on some fish and a very coarse stainless steel scouring pad for others, but for home use the back of your kitchen knife will do fine. This is the messy part as scales will be flying about, so you might want to do the scaling outdoors.

Some fish are much harder to scale than others. In some cases you have to pull some of the scales off with needle nose pliers, in others you have to shave some of the scales off with the sharp edge of the knife. For one very soft fish I found a grapefruit spoon worked well.

ONLY IF

you are going to cook the fish "head on, follow these next few steps for cleaning. If you aren't, just skip down to Filleting where we start by cutting off the head.

Cutting the Fish Open Some deep bodied fish can be cut in the center like a round fish but many have a hard keel running almost the full length. For these you have to cut in from the side. Pick the best looking side and make the cut on the other side. The cut should start under the jaw and go no farther aft than the end of the body cavity.

Pulling Out the Guts Now reach up into the fish and warp your fingers around the innards and pull them down and out. For some deep bodied fish the cavity is so short and high you'll only be able to get one or two fingers in there. If necessary use a spoon to assist.

You may need to go in with your kitchen shears to cut the esophagus which can be pretty tough on some fish.

Pulling the Gills Next pull out the gill arches. For some deep bodied fish the gill slits are so small you can't get a good grip and need to cut the arches loose at both ends with kitchen shears. You may even have to use long nosed pliers to pull them out.

Above and behind the gills you will find the heart and other blood works. Scrape everything out and rinse with cold running water. You should end up with a nice clean empty fish. There should be nothing blocking the opening between the body cavity and the head, and the backbone should be exposed.

An Empty Fish We now have a nice looking whole fish ready to cook. Turn the slit side down in the steamer or baking dish when you cook it.

Filleting

We'll start over from the point right after scaling because most of the instructions above apply only if you're NOT going to fillet the fish.

Severing the backbone First make the usual cuts around the collar to free the head. Tilt the knife in under the collar to get as much of the flesh as possible. Then use your kitchen shears to sever the backbone. You can go in from the top as shown or from the side if that is more convenient or would keep more flesh on the fillets.

Once the head is removed it'll be very easy to scrape all the innards out of the fully exposed body cavity (see instructions above). If you intend to use the head for soup stock it'll also be easy to cut the gills out of it. Just cut under the chin and hinge the collar back, remove the gills and scrape out all the other gooies.

Making First Cuts Make a cut across the tail and then one up from the bottom on each side of the anal fin, all the way from the cut you made across the tail into the body cavity. This cut doesn't have to be real deep, but it does have to cut through the skin and a bit up the fin rays to free the fillet.

Making the Back Cut Make a cut from the top to the backbone moving from head to tail. have the blade following against the fin rays until it can pick up the skeletal bones and follow those all the way to the backbone. Lead with the length of the blade rather than the tip because following the bones is easier that way.

Cutting Below the Backbone Cut the fillet free from the tail. Then from just behind the rib cage dip over the spine and cut cut downward until you meet the cut you already made from the bottom. This should have freed the fillet everywhere except the rib cage.

For some fish you can just follow the rib bones down but for many fish this is difficult to do without leaving a lot of flesh or accidentally cutting off the skirt. On some fish you don't care because the skirt is little more than skin but on other fish it's quite fleshy. I recommend just cutting the ribs away from the backbone and dealing with them after the fillet is removed from the fish.

Removing Pin Bones from the Fillet Now you have a fillet separated from the fish. Use long nose pliers to pull out any remaining ribs. Start at the back and hold the flesh with a finger on each side of the rib as you pull it diagonally toward the top front.

Feel down the centerline and in most fish you'll feel a row of pin bones. These usually only need to be pulled for the first 1/3 of the fish because they get progressively softer. Use long nose pliers and pull them straight forward. This is too tedious for commercial operations, so they either use a "J" cut (wasteful) or a very precise "V" cut to remove the pin bones.

Done Now you are ready to do the same on the other side. You should end up with two nice fillets and a fish with very little flesh left on it - a "see through" skeleton. Feel around one last time for any bones that have escaped, particularly along the cut where the head was. Pull any you find with the long nose pliers.

Skinning Fish

With many fish you're going to want to skin the fillets, either because the skin shrinks badly and will curl or tear the fillets, or because it's a delicate flavored fish and the flavor of the skin is too strong. With a few fish you can practically just pull the skin off, but for most the skin is too delicate, adheres too well, or both.

Note:

The example fish is fairly small, but if it is much wider, consider cutting it in half lengthwise at the centerline to make skinning easier.

Starting cut You'll need a flat cutting board and a very sharp knife with a long straight blade. I find my 8 inch turkey slicing knife is excellent for this purpose. Our demo fish is the same Pompano used for the cleaning and fillet sections above.

Start skin side down with the fillet lined up along the edge of the board so the knife has flat access for the full length. Have the tail end just a little over the edge of your cutting board so you can bend it down and get a straight start with the knife blade. At this point you can see what you're doing and if you're down to the skin and not through it.

Cutting Once you're started you're going to be running blind. The fillet isn't going to curl up as shown in the photo, that was done just to show you what is going on. Once you've started you can move your fingers up onto the board to get a better grip.

Holding the skin tightly to the board, keep the sharp edge of the blade turned just vaguely downward toward the skin and run it forward using just a tiny bit of sawing motion if you need to. Don't turn the blade too far down or you'll cut through the skin or at all up or you'll be taking flesh with the skin. When it's going just right the blade has sort of a sizzling sound and feel.

Skinned You should now have a skin with practically no flesh and a nice clean fillet with no skin. If your fillet has some of the silver inner lining of the skin on it, don't worry about it. If you've broken through the skin and have patches of whole skin on the fillet, they're going to be difficult to remove (use the tip of your filleting knife) so think hard whether you can tolerate a bit of skin before you try.

For some fish it's fine to toss the skins into the pot with the head, bones and fins for making fish stock for soups, chowders and stews. For other fish, the skin is too strong or bitter in flavor. In Southeast Asia Snakehead skins are sold separately for use in making soup stock. I tried it and wasn't that impressed.

Fish Soup Stock

We have a separate page for Making Fish Stock.

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©Andrew Grygus - agryg@clovegarden.com - Photos on this page not otherwise credited are © cg1 - Linking to and non-commercial use of this page permitted