Sablefish flesh is white, buttery soft and somewhat gelatinous, very mild in flavor. It's oiliness makes it amenable to quick high temperature cooking like grilling and broiling. These are the characteristics that have excited the chefs and caused the price to rise. Cooked by dry heat the flesh does not flake, but is soft and pulls apart very easily. Steamed it does flake. Sablefish is also served raw as sushi in Japan.

One minor problem with this fish is the many centerline spines which cannot be pulled from raw fish. In Asia and Europe, where carp is much liked, people are accustomed to dealing with spines at the table, but most Americans are not. The spines are too soft to do damage but can annoy. An acid marinade would probably soften them to edibility.

Buying:   Sablefish is regularly found in fish markets serving an Asian population, particularly Korean and Chinese, but not Philippine or from other tropical regions. It is a medium price fish here in Los Angeles, selling for as low as US $3.69 per pound in Asian markets.

Scales:   The scales are tiny, soft and thin, scraping off as a gray slush. In some areas you will probably have to shave some of the scales off using the sharp edge of your prep knife. You can easily tell where by rubbing the fish from tail to head.

Cleaning:   Nothing particularly difficult here except dealing with this fish's incredible limpness. You'll probably have to cut the guts from the head with kitchen shears. The gills would have to be cut out too, but you're probably just going to discard the head (see below), so you don't need to deal with them. Scrape off the red blood works down to the backbone.

Fillet:   The first thing you'll notice about this fish is its limpness, which makes handling it difficult. Filleting it will sorely test your carefully honed skills because you're going to be at a loss to find bones to follow in most of this fish. Bones there are, but they're thin, short and soft. I would first remove the head. Dip your knife sharply under the collar to get as much flesh as possible. Cut behind the pectoral fins and well in front of the pelvic (bottom) fins. Cut them from the fillet later. The skirt may be so thin you might just want to cut it off. You'll lose about 1 ounce per fillet with a 3 pound fish. In my experience the skirt does not have a strong or "off" flavor so it is usable. You'll be able to feel a lot of centerline spines, but you will not be able to pull them, they are long, kinky, deeply embedded and too fragile to pull.

Skin:   The skin has more flavor than the rather insipid flesh so it's left on wherever possible, particularly when broiling or grilling. It has moderate shrink. If you were to pan fry a fillet (not commonly done with this fish) shrink can be controlled by patting down the fillet after turning it skin side down. The skin is generally removed when the fish will be steamed or otherwise cooked with wet heat. The skin is thin, but much stronger than the flesh so it is easily removed using the long knife and cutting board method, with no loss of flesh. The skin from a fillet taken from a 3 pound fish weights about 1 ounce.

Yield:   If you fillet carefully a 3 pound 6 ounce fish will yield about 1 pound 11-1/2 ounces of skin-on fillet (51%) and about 1 pound 9-1/2 ounces skin off (47%) which is decent yield for a fish.

Stock:   The head, bones and fins make a very oily stock with practically no flavor - just toss them.

Health & Nutrition:   Sablefish is very high in long chain omega 3 fatty acids, EPA and DHA - about as much as wild caught salmon.