Scaling and skinning fish

[Hard H2O]

I have read in articles and seen on TV that chefs and cooks sometimes scale a fish, fillet, and then remove the skin.

Why scale a fish if you are just going to skin it?

When I clean fish I fillet, skin, and then fillet out the ribs.

Am I doing it wrong?

[budrichard]

Most fish can be filleted without having to subsequently remove the rib bones. Its mostly a matter of technique and a flexible knife. Some like salmon will leave you with a row of pin bones that must be removed. If one uses a non flexible blade and cuts through the rib cage rather than following the contours, then you must remove the rib bones seperately.

In any event, if one wishes to use the skin such as using crisped salmon skin in a maki roll, then removing the scales before hand is easier. If one is going to throw the skin away, then I agree, scaling is superfluous.-Dick

[Magictofu]

The only reason I can think of is that some fish have large and very hard scales which makes cuting through the flesh a bit harder.

[Hard H2O]

The only reason I can think of is that some fish have large and very hard scales which makes cuting through the flesh a bit harder.

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Then I can understand removing the scales from where you are going to cut through the skin but not the whole fish.

[Hard H2O]

Most fish can be filleted without having to subsequently remove the rib bones. Its mostly a matter of technique and a flexible knife. Some like salmon will leave you with a row of pin bones that must be removed. If one uses a non flexible blade and cuts through the rib cage rather than following the contours, then you must remove the rib bones seperately.

In any event, if one wishes to use the skin such as using crisped salmon skin in a maki roll, then removing the scales before hand is easier. If one is going to throw the skin away, then I agree, scaling is superfluous.-Dick

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If you take most freshwater fish. Say a crappie and you have 10 gallons of them.

You set up four stations.

The first station involves slicing vertically down behind the gill to the spine. YOu rotate the knife 90° and slice the side off leaving a fillet with ribs and skin attached.

At the second station you slice at the top of the ribs to seperate the pin bones and then with a sweep the ribbs peel off.

The third station is skinning. If you are transporting some jurisdictions require a patch of skin left on for identification.

The fourth station is cleaning and packaging.

With a mess of fish it can be quicker to remove the ribs in a seperate step. With sharp knives it can be fun.

We do not save the skin to eat but I can see that argument for scaling.

[dscott]

I loved the choice of location for the crappie photo shoot. Very nice touch!

An intentional choice or just fortuitous?

[Hard H2O]

I loved the choice of location for the crappie photo shoot.  Very nice touch!

An intentional choice or just fortuitous?

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Just lucky. The buckets were iced up on the bottom so they sat in the tub while we ate dinner.

That was a trip up to Sioux Narrows in Ontario for Lake Trout the first week in January this year. We ended up with a mess of crappie, lake trout, walleye, and perch.

Nothing like fresh fish pulled out of an 8" hole. We had a couple of meals of crappie, perch, and walleye.

One of the meals we had 3 hotel pans full of fish between 6 anglers. We ate until we almost exploded.

The cook at the resort prepared one of the meals with a wash of evaporated milk and corn flake crumbs. No seasoning. Just the milk and the corn flakes. I quizzed her on this. It was one of the best fish fries I have ever partaken of.

I tried to duplicate it in my home kitchen. Should be easy. Same fish, fresh, evaporated milk, cornflake crumbs, hot peanut oil. My attempt was nowhere near as tasty as what she put together. I am not sure if my deep fryer versus the resorts commercial unit could make a difference or if it was a different brand of canned milk or corn flakes but I was sorely dissappointed.

[Old Grumpy]

Hard!! When we went to Canada fishing all of the fish fries and shore lunches were fried in Lard!!! I really think that is the secret!! It is very difficult to get that flavor or taste with any type of oil. Try it and see what you think!

[Paul Bacino]

Skin is very tasty...if you want to prepare the skin..for a bit of extra crispy ness.

You need to remove the scales first..pretty hard to do if you filet the skin first.

So scale..filet-- now you can cook your filet and eat the skin..too

[scubadoo97]

Recently when filleting a whole fish I have left the scales on. It does make it a little more difficult to make the cut along the dorsal fin to begin removing the fillet. Sometimes I have cut off the dorsal fins so I don't get poked in the fingers when handling the fish.

Although scaling is not difficult it is messy as they fly all over the place and is best done outdoors