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Last Visited: 7/23/2008
I asked Eric Donnelly, executive chef at The Oceanaire Seafood Room, to provide tips for home cooks on how to fillet a whole fish.He proved it's not as intimidating as it sounds.Although I'll never beat Donnelly's in-the-zone filleting speed of about four minutes per salmon, I did see that the job's main requirements are simply a sharp knife, a steady arm and practice.On the kitchen-expertise scale, it rates somewhere around cutting up a chicken.
Even if your fishmonger is among those who will fillet a whole fish for you, there are still benefits to doing it yourself.
"You definitely have a freshness advantage" keeping it on the bone until you're home, Donnelly said.
"The least amount of oxygen exposure you can provide your fish, the more fresh and natural a flavor you're going to have."
Donnelly demonstrated the filleting using wild sockeye salmon, a "value-added fish" that is having a strong run this year.It is one of the more affordable salmon varieties and delivers great taste for the money.
"It's one of the most versatile pieces of fish we use," he said.It's not overrich, but it still has "great fat."It's full of flavor, and holds up well on the grill, in the oven, or even being smoked or used for sushi.A few things to keep in mind:
Consider buying a whole fish if you're throwing a party.Once you're serving six people, it easily pays off, Donnelly said.His cleaned sockeyes yielded six generous fillets each (at the restaurant, he serves whopping half-pound portions), plus providing leftover trim for canapes.
The "yield" -- the amount of usable fish -- is about 80 percent of a whole cleaned fish. (They're generally sold that way, known as "in the round."It's unusual to buy fish with head and guts intact, but the yield from intact fish would be 65 percent to 70 percent.) A whole fish is usually far cheaper than preportioned cuts, but keep the yield in mind when calculating price comparisons.
Even if filleting isn't for you, it's worth watching Donnelly in action for a visual tutorial on how to remove the pesky pinbones that plague even store-bought fillets.
Half the work is done if your knife is sharp.Donnelly used a 10-inch chef's knife for the bulk of the task.It's helpful to have a longer knife on hand -- he favors a sushi knife or thin boning knife for slicing the belly flap, for instance -- but you can do the whole job with the chef's knife if it's sharp.
Take your time.
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