Okay, apologies for the really dumb question, but I’ve only got into preparing fish recently (I’m a total novice), but I’m keen to learn tips and techniques, so all advice welcome.
Let me set the scene:
My son and I caught some fish recently, and I prepped them as best I could into fillets. As part of removing the skin, there seemed to be a layer of what looked like “silver skin” left in some places on the belly, where I’d either torn or missed slicing the backing of the skin, and I found this significantly more difficult to trim off than I would have expected.
My question relates to how to effectively remove this “silver skin” (and apologies, I’m not sure if that’s the right term, as that’s what I’d call it on the whole beef rump I was trimming today).
Previously my only experience with fish preparation was slicing pre-trimmed salmon for sashimi.
Let me describe what I’ve tried, and what I’m thinking and feel free to correct:
Okay, so I’ve got a couple of photos of what I’m calling “silver skin” in the bottom left hand corner (but maybe it’s not muscle membrane, maybe it’s a layer of skin):
And here where you can see it above the fat layer:
So, what I’ve tried:
A parallel slice dragging the edge across the top of the fillet:
But at that acute angle I found that either the edge wasn’t digging in to cut the “silver skin” (although you can see beads of fat on the edge), and if I pushed harder, the really soft fillet just compressed, resulting in no better removal of the “silver skin”.
Next I tried a less acute cutting angle and that successfully removed the “silver skin” but left a fairly large “divot” in the fillet.
Next what I tried placing the skin side down on the board, compressing the fillet from above with my hand, and then slicing laterally along the board as thin as I could while still making contact.
That was more successful, and less pock marked result.
I’ve done this a few times now and have the following thoughts, but not sure what’s right or not:
1) Initially I thought maybe the knife wasn’t refined enough to cut cleanly, as I’ve mainly got stainless knives so usually have edges in the <6K range.
2) Then I thought maybe the edge wasn’t toothy enough to catch on the “silver skin”, but I’ve used the same edge fine on trimming silver skin off a beef rump quite happily (I note that mammalian meats appear and behave quite different).
3) I thought maybe the knife wasn’t sharp enough, but it was still cleanly slicing paper towel.
4) I thought maybe my knife was too thick behind the edge that the apex was skidding over the top of the silver skin, so I repeated using my thinnest laser that’s crazy thin behind the edge (pictured) and you can see how the fat beads along the edge, suggesting the apex has made contact with something.
5) I thought the apex angle might be not acute enough, so resharpened as low as I could go freehand, which after stropping ended up probably about 20 degrees per side (started about 10 degrees but got progressively less acute on higher grits to ensure I was hitting the apex).
6) I thought that maybe it wasn’t my tools, it might be a technique thing that I haven’t learnt yet, so posted this to see what suggestions more experienced cooks might have.
Any suggestions welcome
Let me set the scene:
My son and I caught some fish recently, and I prepped them as best I could into fillets. As part of removing the skin, there seemed to be a layer of what looked like “silver skin” left in some places on the belly, where I’d either torn or missed slicing the backing of the skin, and I found this significantly more difficult to trim off than I would have expected.
My question relates to how to effectively remove this “silver skin” (and apologies, I’m not sure if that’s the right term, as that’s what I’d call it on the whole beef rump I was trimming today).
Previously my only experience with fish preparation was slicing pre-trimmed salmon for sashimi.
Let me describe what I’ve tried, and what I’m thinking and feel free to correct:
Okay, so I’ve got a couple of photos of what I’m calling “silver skin” in the bottom left hand corner (but maybe it’s not muscle membrane, maybe it’s a layer of skin):
And here where you can see it above the fat layer:
So, what I’ve tried:
A parallel slice dragging the edge across the top of the fillet:
But at that acute angle I found that either the edge wasn’t digging in to cut the “silver skin” (although you can see beads of fat on the edge), and if I pushed harder, the really soft fillet just compressed, resulting in no better removal of the “silver skin”.
Next I tried a less acute cutting angle and that successfully removed the “silver skin” but left a fairly large “divot” in the fillet.
Next what I tried placing the skin side down on the board, compressing the fillet from above with my hand, and then slicing laterally along the board as thin as I could while still making contact.
That was more successful, and less pock marked result.
I’ve done this a few times now and have the following thoughts, but not sure what’s right or not:
1) Initially I thought maybe the knife wasn’t refined enough to cut cleanly, as I’ve mainly got stainless knives so usually have edges in the <6K range.
2) Then I thought maybe the edge wasn’t toothy enough to catch on the “silver skin”, but I’ve used the same edge fine on trimming silver skin off a beef rump quite happily (I note that mammalian meats appear and behave quite different).
3) I thought maybe the knife wasn’t sharp enough, but it was still cleanly slicing paper towel.
4) I thought maybe my knife was too thick behind the edge that the apex was skidding over the top of the silver skin, so I repeated using my thinnest laser that’s crazy thin behind the edge (pictured) and you can see how the fat beads along the edge, suggesting the apex has made contact with something.
5) I thought the apex angle might be not acute enough, so resharpened as low as I could go freehand, which after stropping ended up probably about 20 degrees per side (started about 10 degrees but got progressively less acute on higher grits to ensure I was hitting the apex).
6) I thought that maybe it wasn’t my tools, it might be a technique thing that I haven’t learnt yet, so posted this to see what suggestions more experienced cooks might have.
Any suggestions welcome
