I have had a passion for the ocean since I first experienced it in person. This love of the sea is not just for the body of water, but for it's inhabitants as well.
I guess my love is two-fold. First, there are amazing animals of unbelievable beauty and complexity to be found in our planets seas. If you have had the chance to scuba dive in a tropical body of water you will know what I am talking about. If you have not had the chance, go do it if you can! If not take my word for it. Beautiful!
The reason I bring up the tropical waters is because the colors of the sea life in warm waters is vivid. The colder waters have life no less amazing, but less exciting to see.
The second part of my love for the sea is the diversity of available fish that we can use to create outstanding meals as diverse as the species in the ocean.
Before I go further into that I feel now is the time to get on my soapbox.
If we as a species decide to be good stewards of our planets oceans, they will reward us with food, energy, knowledge and entertainment in amounts that are hard to imagine. If we overfish our seas, pollute them and exploit them in irresponsible ways, the damaged seas will be a piece of our undoing.
Let's focus on the food aspect as that is the part of the equation about which I have the most knowledge.
Overfishing by man is threatening many of the fisheries around the world. Overfishing can be reversed if it is arrested early enough. What can you do about it? Know where your seafood comes from and choose wisely. For more info on how to make good seafood choices go to www.montereybayaquarium.org and download the pocket seafood chart or click on the links on the page to learn more.
O.K. Soapbax session is over, where was I?
Today I'll show you how filet a whole salmon. We picked our salmon up from a local farmers market where native Americans sell the fish that they catch on the nearby Columbia river. This is about as fresh as fish gets for the consumer as the salmon we purchased was pulled from the river the night before!
In order to properly filet a round bodied fish (salmon, trout, and the like), you'll need a very sharp boning knife. I use a very flexible knife that was manufactured by F. Dick & Co. This is a personal choice, use the knife with which you are most comfortable.
I like to get my salmon with the head on because I use the head as leverage or a handle of sorts while I cut and because a really wonderful Philippino soup can be made from Salmon heads. That is for another blog because this fish was purchased with the head already removed.
Start to filet by cutting the fish from the head end down toward the tail.
This first cut should be through the skin and the meat on the top or back of the fish if you will. Try to follow the spine just to one side of the upper "dorsal" bones.
Once the first cut has been made, go back up to the top and while holding the rib cage open,
cut through them down to a few inches from the tail where they stop.
At this point I take the knife and make an incision that goes from the back of the salmon through the bottom where the ribs have ended and continue to filet following the spine as closely as possible until I have reached the tail.
Now you have one filleted side.
Place the side on the cutting board skin side down and remove the ribs.
To do this, try to cut just under the ribs while removing as little meat as possible. Remember that you will get better at this as you have more practice.
Once the ribs have been removed, cut out the dorsal (top) and lower fins and their support muscles and bones.
Finally, it is time to remove the "pin" bones. These are bones that run from the head to about 3/4 of the way to the tail in the thickest part of the filet.
These are sometimes hard to find, so use your fingers to find them by lightly sweeping your fingertips down the length of the filet from head to tail. As a chef that taught me in culinary school said "The fingers never lie, if there are pin bones in the filet, they will find them."
Once you have located the pin bones, us a pair of needle-nose pliers to pull them out.
This can be a bit tricky when the fish is super fresh like the one I cut today as the meat does not want to let go of the bones and these are brittle little guys.
Grip the bones gently but firmly (if that makes any sense. Once you do this a few times you will get what I am trying to say) and pull them at a 45 degree angle upward in the direction of the head. so many of mine broke today due to the adherence to the meat that I just gave up and warned my family that there would be bones.
There is one last step that I do but almost no one that I know does and that is to remove whatever remnant of the spine that may be left on the filet. It will be a white line running a portion of the length of the filet. To remove it, tuck the tip of your knife under one side and while lifting the white line simply cut it away. Remember to minimize the amount of meat that is removed from the salmon.
I left the skin on the filet today since we were going to grill the side in one piece.
I will cut another salmon in the near future to show you how to remove the skin easily while preserving your beautiful filet.
The last step I perform is to scrape the remaining meat from the bones that I have just removed.
Use a spoon to scrape down the length of the spine from head to tail. Even if you are really good at cutting fish, there will be some usable meat still on the spine. Once I have collected the meat from the bones, I freeze them in small bundles to use for salmon cakes and patties. Waste not, want not!
Note: It is important that you remove the pin bones before you skin the salmon. At times a very fresh filet can get a little messed up by the removal of the pin bones and the reluctance of the flesh to give them up.
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