The Best Way To Fillet A Whole Fish

Can I skip kissing the fish?

[Woman] Yeah.

I know it was, it was my idea,

but I don't know if I wanna kiss this fish

that one's gimme the eye.

Hi, I'm Frank Proto.

I'm a professional chef and a culinary instructor.

And this is how you break down a whole fish.

Okay buddy.

We're on camera, smile.

We're talking how to fillet it,

how to prepare to cook it whole and serving.

This is how to break down a fish 101.

Buying a whole fish and breaking it down yourself

can be super intimidating but don't be scared off.

With whole fish,

it's easier to determine whether it's fresh or not.

And it's a bigger bang for your buck.

You can roast the fish whole, or you can take the bones

and make a stock with it.

With a few easy techniques,

you'll be able to fillet your fish in no time.

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When I'm buying whole fish,

there's a bunch of things that I'm looking for.

First and foremost, when you smell a fish,

it shouldn't have a fishy smell.

It should be neutral or smell like an ocean breeze.

Another determining factor is looking at the eyes.

You can see they're super bright and black.

There's slightly bulging out and that's what you want.

When the eyes start to get sunken and cloudy,

that means the fish is old.

When you press on the flesh, does it spring back?

If you press on the flesh and it leaves in indent,

that means it's getting old.

See how I press on the flesh,

I'm not leaving any dent.

One of the other determining factors

is there's the scales are on there really tight

that not just rubbing off.

Lastly, we wanna look inside the belly

and check for belly burn.

Is it discolored?

Does it have yellow spots or dark spots?

Belly burn means that the guts have been left in too long

and the fish is basically breaking down from the inside out.

One thing I never do when I buy whole fish is scale

and gut them at home.

It's way too messy.

So I to get my fishmonger to take the guts out

and to scale my fish for me.

This should be offered freely in every fish market.

They shouldn't charge you for scaling and gutting your fish.

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One of the main advantages to filleting is

that you're getting a clean piece

of fish with no bones in it.

It reduces the cook time.

Fillets cook extremely fast.

It's easier to portion out

or at least figure out how many portions you need.

We tend to use fillets for larger fish

or meatier fish because they don't fall apart easily.

Before you fillet your fish,

make sure that it's cold

because if it gets warm, it gets mushy.

And it's a lot harder to fillet.

There are two types of fish that you're gonna fillet,

a round fish and a flat fish.

Both of these have very specific ways

that you have to fillet them.

Here I have a bronzino, which is around fish.

I'm gonna get a paper towel and wipe it down.

If it's wet, it's gonna slide around my board.

The knife I have here is more of a traditional boning knife

that has a lot of flex to it.

I'm just gonna make sure that my knife is nice and sharp.

One thing I always tell my students is you're not a surgeon.

We're not using a scalpel or the tip of the knife.

We're using the larger portion of the knife.

There's a fin there.

You can feel the bone,

get under the fin and cut around the head.

So I go all the way to the tip of the head.

There's a little piece of meat there

and I'm gonna cut directly down to the backbone.

Make sure that the back of my knife

is resting on the backbone.

I'm gonna just pull my knife down all the way to the tail

and then I'm gonna lift rest my knife on the backbone

so that I have no flesh left here.

When I get down to here where the spine is,

I'm gonna tilt my knife up

get the tip of the knife in there

just to go up and around the backbone.

And then I'm gonna flatten my knife out.

Once I get to the belly,

I'm gonna take my knife and I'm gonna pull the fillet off,

cut through the belly bones.

So I'm leaving those belly bones or those ribs on there.

I like to always replace my fillet.

If I don't have the fillet there,

my fish kind of sits at a wonky angle.

So I almost always use the first fillet as a prop

to hold my fish up.

Make sure my knife is clean.

Run it over my steel again.

And then I just go the opposite way.

I'm gonna start at the tail and go to the head.

Once we get to the spine,

make a little incision there,

flatten it out, cut off the belly.

Put it in some water, cover some vegetables,

simmer it away.

You got a great fish stock.

And now I have my two fillets

that still need a little bit of cleaning.

I wanna get off these rib bones here.

I'm getting my knife under those bones.

I angle it up so that when I cut down,

the blade of my knife is cutting along those rib bones.

This can go in your stock too.

So again, with the other side, last thing I need to do

before I skin these fillets,

right along the belly, or right along the ribs,

there are pin bones, which are really small

and these are the bones that people tend to choke on.

I have my tweezers,

wherever the head of the fish was, faces me.

They usually come out a little easier

if you pull towards the head.

They're really hard to see so that's why you have

to count on feeling for them.

And I pull the pin bones.

You wanna be careful not to tear the fish up

too much with this.

And there's about five or six of them.

And I just rub until I don't feel any more bones.

Each fish has a different amount of pin bones.

So be sure that you get 'em all out.

If you see something like a blood spot like this

you can always just trim it away.

Believe it or not,

with a lot of fish, the skin is edible

and people tend to kind of shy away from it.

A fish like this, the skin is delicious.

Taking the skin off this fillet is optional.

Today I'm gonna show you how to do it.

I like to put my fillet on the edge

of the board so I can get down low.

If I can't get down low, my knuckles get in the way.

So I'm making a little tab on the tail side.

This will allow me to hold it.

If you don't have room for a tab,

you can always get a paper towel and hold onto the skin.

I'm holding on.

My knife is angled down towards the board.

I'm gonna wiggle the skin and my knife at the same time.

And my skin comes off.

You like that.

Move a little shake and shimmy.

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And there you have it.

That is our round fish fillet it and skin it.

This is ready for cooking.

Now let's move on to how to fillet a flat fish.

Here I have a fluke and the fillet technique

for this is completely different than a round fish.

The fluke of the flounder starts

out swimming like a normal fish,

eye on either side.

But as it gets older, the eyes migrate to one side

and the light side is what's in the sand.

The dark side is the top side.

They dig or wiggle themselves into the sand.

So their camouflage and it keeps them safe from predators.

I start on the white side,

these tend to be the smaller fillets

and for beginners it's a lot easier to see.

If you look at the fish there is a line there,

and that line tells you where to cut.

Believe it or not.

So, what I like to do is take my knife

and run it straight down that line.

You'll get some scales on your knife.

Just wipe those scales off,

the skin on these flat fish tends to be a lot firmer

because it's not an oily fish.

So they don't scale these

because most people are gonna take the skin off.

The belly is here and the head is here.

Make an incision there by the head.

And then I like to make an incision of the belly.

If you squish around here,

you can feel that the belly stops where the bones end.

There is a small part of filleting that I'd use the tip

and that's right now.

I'm gonna take the tip of the knife.

I'm gonna rest the back of the tip of the knife

against the spine and run it down the spine.

That just gives me a little space

so I can get the flat of my knife in there.

So I'm taking my knife, I'm pushing it flat on the bones

and I'm just getting the length of the knife

and I'm dragging it towards me.

As I drag it towards me,

I just roll the fillet back and I got my first fillet.

So from the other side, it looks like this.

I get my knife,

I lay it flat,

pushing with a fair pressure

so the back side of my knife is resting on those bones

and I have my other fillet.

We can now turn it over.

So we're looking for that line again.

It's a little more faint on this side of the fish,

but again, we're not just using the tip.

We're using the whole knife.

I'm gonna cut around the head.

And then I'm gonna cut around the belly.

Where the bones end is where the belly starts.

This is the point I'm gonna get in there with the tip

of the knife,

run it along the spine on both sides

just to kind of free it up from the spine.

And then I get my knife in there flat against the bones,

roll my fillet away.

And there's my top fillet.

You can see the difference in color

between the top and the bottom fillet.

The bottom fillet is a little bit whiter.

The top fillet is a little grayer,

a little more meaty, a little less flaky.

I think the textural difference is more

than the flavor difference.

So now I have all four of my fillets.

This carcass as long as the gills

and the guts are taken out,

you can use it for another stock.

For flat fish, you definitely want to take the skin off it.

It's not tender and it's really not good eating.

So get it on the edge of our board,

make a little incision and I'm barely moving my knife.

I'm just kinda wiggling and the skin comes off.

Skin can go into your stock.

The fillet also has these little end pieces

that are parts of the fin.

You can add them to your stock

or you can just cook 'em and eat 'em if you want.

Same thing with the rest of my fillets.

What I'm gonna do next might be controversial

to a lot of chefs.

I hate scales.

Flat fish, almost always has scales on it.

Some people say, you can just scrape this off.

I don't feel that does the job.

So I'm gonna take 'em to the sink,

under very light water pressure.

Give them a nice rinse,

get all those scales off,

right onto a paper towel.

Some chefs are gonna hate me for that.

They say, once the rain jacket or the skin is off,

you don't wanna wash your fish.

I disagree.

I'd much rather lose a little bit of flavor

than of scales on my fish, 'cause they're disgusting.

And that is what you call a strong opinion.

All right,

these fillets are ready to be cooked.

To plate fillets,

I'm always gonna put the bone side up,

not the skin side up.

We made a simple sauce in the pan that we sauteed

the fish fillets in with lemon, parsley and butter.

And we're just gonna spoon that over the top,

couple of lemons on the side

in case people like it lemony and there you have it.

The fillets are ready to eat.

That is a nice piece of fish.

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Roasting a whole fish is a little bit more forgiving.

The skinny bones help trap moisture inside the fish

and you have a more tender, flaky finish products.

Fish on the bone tends to be more flavorful.

I think that the best fish to cook whole is

the nice flaky white flesh fish,

red snapper, black bass, stripe bass.

Here we have a bronzino

which is really good for roasting whole.

Let's prep it.

I have a pair of kitchen shearers.

People will call these a scissor, but they're not.

Yeah, they are okay, Frank.

They are okay.

I'm sorry.

They're a scissor.

They're usually a little more sturdy.

You can cut bone with this.

To start off, you're gonna get it scaled and gutted.

And if your fish has the fins on it,

I like to take off the back fin with a kitchen shear

any sort of fins that stick out.

We can even trim the tail here

because these parts tend to burn.

I like to put a little extra virgin olive oil

on the fish, rub it in on all sides.

The olive oil will make it so that our seasoning stick.

I'm gonna put a few lemon slices on the inside,

close that up.

Black pepper on both sides,

generous helping of salt.

I like my skin to have salt on it

so it almost forms a crust,

maybe just a little bit of salt on the inside.

I'm gonna put this in a 350 degree oven

for at least 20 minutes.

To check if this fish is done,

kinda pull on the collarbone,

you see how it frees up nice and easy.

That means it's cooked.

The collarbone should pretty much pull out fairly easily.

You could just dig in there like a savage

and eat it off the bone.

Like, you know, pick it up

but that's not the way we wanna do it.

We wanna present it in a really nice way.

I have a few tools that I'm gonna use to fillet this fish,

two spoons

and a fish spatula,

it's a lot more springy than your normal spatula.

And it has holes in order to drain things.

What I like to do first is get my spoon

and make an incision with the spoon.

Kinda get under that skin along the backbone, right?

And basically just lifting off the flesh from the backbone.

And I'm just gonna pull a away some of those top fin bones

and get rid of 'em.

Now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna free up this fillet

and take it away from the fish.

Let's try and keep our skin intact.

I'm gonna flip this over

because that's my top fillet and that's the nice fillet.

I don't need these lemons anymore.

The next thing I'm gonna do is just pull the skin away.

I'm gonna take the tail off and pull the spine of the fish.

You see how that spine comes off nice and easy.

Get rid of that.

Pull away any bones that I see.

And then I have these belly bones.

I'm gonna get it under with the spoon

and try and take those away.

I think a knife will just shred it

whereas a spoon will kind of give me a nice gentle pull.

One thing about whole fish

is there's always gonna be a few bones left.

You're never gonna get them, all right.

And that's what people who eat whole fish understand.

There's a sacrifice for that flavor.

Now my bottom fillet goes on.

I'm gonna take my top fillet with the skin still intact

and it's gonna go right on top.

You might wanna squeeze some lemon on this,

maybe a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, and you're done.

This is how you fillet and plate a whole cooked fish.

It's super tender, super juicy.

Bronzino is a small fish.

So it has really small cheeks,

but you can actually get in there

and get that cheek meat out.

That is super tasty.

I'm gonna eat it.

I'm not a fan of the eyeballs

but you can eat the eyeballs too.

As you can see, there's nothing to be afraid of

with these steps and a little bit of practice.

You can break down your whole fish at home.

Go cut some fish already.

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I'm just gonna finish this.

You guys, clean this up.