Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hey, hey, hey, Freoboy was the one that suggested I use my nude pic as my avatar - you guys would all be seeing it everyday.

Or,


if we keep it going long enough maybe the women will join in

That was weird, I watched it without sound, what was she doing to that poor chicken........ ?


This shows how to kill a fish.... eventually...

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from wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ike_jime

Iki Jime (活き締め?) or Ike jime (活け締め?) is a method of paralyzing and bleeding fish to maintain its quality.[1] The technique originated in Japan, but is now in widespread use. It involves the insertion of a spike quickly and directly into the hind brain thereby causing immediate brain death. A fish brain is usually located slightly behind and above the eye. When spiked correctly, the fish fins flare and the fish relaxes, immediately ceasing all motion. The blood contained in the fish flesh retracts to the gut cavity, which produces a better coloured and flavoured fillet. This method seems to minimize the pain.
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One method is a hard wack on the forehead with the back of a large knife. (from a video called "a river somewhere")


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from http://www.pir.sa.gov.au/fisheries/recr ... your_catch

For fish you are legally able to keep
Deal with them humanely.

Place the fish on ice immediately after capture - this has an anaesthetic effect on the fish and also improves their eating quality and reduces spoilage.
You can spike the fish by inserting a knife or spike in the centre of the fish’s head immediately behind the eyes – this minimises stress and the fish will yield better quality flesh which keeps longer.

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If you're actually out fishing, my preferred method is to drop them straight into an ice water slurry. In fact I suspect this is what I'll do at home with my silver perch. ie drop them into a bowl with ice and water. It makes the flesh easy to fillet I'm told. (see filleting below)

To clean, scrape the scales off with preferably a fish scaler, or the back of a knife working against the grain ie from the back to the front.

To gut a fish, holding it upside down and pointing away from you, take a sharp knife and insert it just a tiny way into it's vent (butt), then make a cut all the way to the base of the gills. If you dont puncture any of the guts it makes cleaning a bit easier, but it doesnt matter that much. Pull out all the guts.

Rinse the cavity well.

Particularly if you are freezing fish or not eating them right away, the cleaner you make the cavity the better.

To fillet a fish...

I have no idea.

Do what other people do.

I take my fish and hack away at it until there are bits of crap hanging off in all directions and it looks more like something that came out of the little filter thing in a dishwasher than anything that was once a fish.

Just grill them whole with some slices of lemon inside and sprinkle some salt and whatever on the outside. Fish skin is your friend.

If you have caught a leather jacket or anything else that doesnt have scales, make a cut along the spine , then a shallow cut to the spine at the tail. Pick up a corner of skin and peel from the tail end toward the head.

I cant do that either.

But on a good day I can clean a squid without water.

So I've got that going for me.

Yep.

I just watched that video. Dont do what she does either

Man, I had a hard time paying attention to her cleaning methods...

Love pan frying fish. I always cut open the bottom to make it easier to pull the guts out though and sometimes I leave the head, just remove the gills.

An easy method to kill the fish is to hold it down and whack it once or twice on the head.

Hi all,
To produce boneless and skinless fillets without the need to mess around with Gutting and scaling, I took some photos recently when I dressed the dead Silver perch in my system. This method works on fish of any size or shape and I have being doing it this way since I was taught how yonks ago!

This will take a couple of pages, because of the 3 photo post limit, so bear with me if you will.

1. Aways use the sharpest knife you have, a blunt knife will always cut you and not the fish. Take the knife and cut behind the head down to the Pectoral fin, each side:

2.Slice the flesh as near to the Fin and body juction, without cutting through the backbone or top bones.
3. Continue slicing along this body length cut, increasing the depth of cut a little at a time, by scraping the knife along the bones and back bone until you just get past the rib cage. Push the point of the knife through the body at this point and cut straight along to the tail.


. . . . continued

4. Continue to use the pointed end of the knife to scrape along the rib cage until you reach the extent of the cut in step 1 and peel off the first fillet.

5.Repeat for the other side of the carcass and you end up with 2 fillets and a carcass without having to mess around with gutting and the mess that it can involve.

6. Now place your fillets skin side down on a lightly salted cutting board (stops the fillet slipping when you are skinning) Hold the small tail end down with your fingernail and slice a between your nails and the flexh at this point until you reach the skin. Rotate the blade to effectively 'lift' the flesh from tthe skin with a little pressure.
Rotate the blade back flat agianst the skin and slice forward towards the head for about an inch at a time. Rotate the blade again, and repeat until you slice the skin from the whole fillet. Try not to slice through the skin, it's a real bugger to get it started again!!

7. Repeat for the other fillet and now you have 2 skinless but not quite boneless fillets.
Feel with your finger/s at the middle of the fillet and you will find the ends of the small bones that protrude from the back bone/ribs. Cut out a slice of flesh containing these bones by slicing carefully each side of where you feel these bones and discard the resulting 'wedge'. This can now be discarded with the filleted frame, guts in-tact and the skins.
You now have skinless, boneless fillets ready for the pan.

8. Do not wet your fillets, instead just dab with a paper towel to remove excess moisture etc and ready for cooking.

To finish:
I just put a teaspoon of butter in a heavy based fry pan, let it clarify and burn off a bit then add a teaspoon of Honey. Stir until it "froths", turn down the heat and introduce your fillets.
Cook one side until you see the edges of the fillets turn white and flip over. Cook over medium heat until the whole fillet is cooked through, the honey has caramellised and then sprinkle with crushed Cashews or Macadamia nuts.

Serve on a rice bed with the pan juices scraped over the fillets and whatever takes your fancy to be the other goodies.
Enjoy.

Cheers All, IanK

Love your work Ian !

Nice one Ian.

My mum claimes the best method of cooking fish involved pegging fish to a clothes line and blasting them with an oxy torch.

-From a family friend who cooked whole ungutted (but scaled) small fish this way (very fresh - 10 minutes out of the water) They just ate around the gut cavity.

That sounds sooooo familiar

...think I'll try Ian's method next time

Sted

I guess you could try Ians method. If his is the kind of outcome you want.

I bought myself a snapper today and actually made my first decent fillet.

It turns out if you are greedy and just get a fish that's huge, it's easy

I actually did a really good job of the first side, with the head pointing away and the backbone to the right, but for some reason, as soon as I turned it over, everything went urchin shaped.

But now I can make a dish that's a fish fillet on a bed of scrambled fishmush.

At least the fish stock I made had it's full ration of fish

Ian, in number 6, it appears you are missing the last joint of your tail-holding finger. If that's the case, and you lost it because of your filleting method can you let us know?

If you lost it because of an attempt on Everest or something that's fine, but I really need some reassurance here before I permanently commit to your method rather my finger-safe fish mashing technique

A thin flexible blade helps a lot as well. I've been struggling a bit because I've always used my favoured kitchen tool. It's the kind of thing you'd see in a classic shower scene murder, rather than a tackle box or Ian's video. My first attempt with a thinner blade got me flush to the bones and left no fish behind on the bones. (at least not on the good side - the other side left a bit to be desired ).

and sharp

really sharp