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• Equipment -
• Scaling & Cleaning a Deep Bodied Fish
• Filleting a Deep Bodied Fish
• Skinning a Deep Bodied Fish
• Links -

Naturally you need the right tools to do the job efficiently. Shown are the essentials, but also nice to have are a long straight turkey slicing knife for skinning wide fillets and large long nose pliers for pulling out the backbone if you're going to stuff a fish (see below).

• Kitchen Shears to cut through bones and other tough stuff.
• Filleting Knife with blade at least 6 inches long, razor sharp and very flexible. A razor sharp boning knife is second best.
• Knife - your standard cutting and chopping knife for the more brutal cuts, will also serve for skinning fillets if they're not too wide.
• Sharpening Stone to keep your knives razor sharp.
• Needle Nose Pliers for pulling out small bones.

For our example we'll use a Pompano but any fish of this general shape will be pretty much the same. In my Varieties of Fish article the "Prep and Cooking" page for each variety of fish will have notes if a particular fish needs different handling.

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.

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, and for one 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.

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.

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.

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 and you should have a nice clean empty fish. There should be nothing blocking the opening between the body cavity and the head and the spine should be exposed.

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.

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

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 spine. 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. 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.

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.

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 spine. Lead with the length of the blade rather than the tip because following the bones is easier that way.

Cut the fillet free from the tail. Then from just behind the ribcage 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 ribcage.

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 spine and dealing with them after the fillet is removed from the fish.

Now you have a fillet separated from the fish. Use needle 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 spines. These usually only need to be pulled for the first 1/3 of the fish because they get progressively softer. Use the needle nose pliers and pull them straight forward.

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. 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 needle nose pliers..

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.

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.

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.

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 most 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. In fact in Southeast Asia Snakehead skins are sold separately for use in making soup stock.