How to Fillet a Round Fish (ie salmon or trout)

I'm using a Trout:
- cut off all fins (not tail)


- check if there's any black icky stuff on the inside. if there is, scrape it out with a spoon. don't worry about trace amounts left behind, just if there's big globbies, they can make you sick.


- *all directions are designed for right handed people* turn the trout so the head is at your left hand. hold your knife at an angle towards the head, just behind the collar (imagine if it's wearing a necklace). cut through as much on this side as you can, then flip the fish over and do the same thing on the other side, eventually removing the head completely. don't be afraid to cut through some bones. (sorry, i was having so much fun i forgot to take a pic)
- turn the fish so the head-end is at your right hand, and position your knife so it's on top of but as close to the backbone as possible, that way you won't miss too much flesh. the idea is to slice your way back to the tail, and it helps to hold the side of the fish with your left hand whilst you're slicing.


you want to come through the skin right before the tail. then flip the fish over so the backbone is facing you, and do the same thing. this is a tad trickier cuz you can't see as well. just get your peepers all up in there! remember to keep you knife as flat as possible so you cut evenly OH and you will be cutting through a number of small bones, just don't cut through the backbone.


you should now have three pieces that look like this:


(don't worry about the red parts, it's just bruising, and you can throw out the tail part)
now it is time to slice off the ribs. use your fingers to feel where the top of the ribs are, and place the blade of your knife there. slice under the ribs, but as close to the ribs as possible, you can touch the ribs on the outside with your other hand cuz your knife won't slice through, and then you can feel if you're going too deep with your knife.


once you're almost to the bottom, flip the almost-detached ribs over, and cut them off completely.


repeat this on the other fillet. also trim any fatty strips, and if there are still some bones around the collar, cut those away too. next is my favorite part! removing the pin bones. starting at the head end, you can feel where the bones are, then drag the tip of your knife along to uncover the tops of the bones so they stick up a bit. then you just pull them out with tweezers, and you will probably rip a bit of the flesh out too, don't worry about that. make sure you get all the bones, if it seems like there was a gap between two, there's probably still a bone in there. also, one or two of them generally hide out at the head end sticking out horizontally.



(if you look really closely at the above pic, there's a tiny piece of bone sticking up in front of the knife blade)


at this point i thought you might like to see what my boning knife looks like. i'm sure you can use a paring knife for such a small fish, and i use my larger chef's knife for large salmon. whatever knife you use, make sure it's sharp!



now you're ready to make the recipe in my next post! (which is coming tomorrow)