How to Filet a Pacific Saury (Sanma)
Notes from what I learned during a one-day sushi making class.
I asked a former fishmonger, and according to him if you don't have a specialized fish cutting knife, a well sharpened kitchen knife is fine! Recipe by aki_kazumi
How to Filet a Pacific Saury (Sanma)
Notes from what I learned during a one-day sushi making class.
I asked a former fishmonger, and according to him if you don't have a specialized fish cutting knife, a well sharpened kitchen knife is fine! Recipe by aki_kazumi
Cooking Instructions
- 1
Wet your cutting board. Place the knife on the far side of the board, and have a kitchen towel ready too. This is the basic mis en place? for professionals. I used a 15 cm knife.
- 2
You are supposed to hold your knife like this when cutting up a fish, put your index finger on the back of the blade.
- 3
Scrape the scales off the fish by scraping the knife lightly over it.
- 4
Insert the knife into the gill and cut off the head.
- 5
The head is cut off.
- 6
Cut into the belly of the fish from the tail end towards the head.
- 7
The belly is cut now. Wash and scrape the guts out under running water.
- 8
This is how it looks after the guts have been washed out. Pat dry with kitchen towel.
- 9
Score the belly of the fish, then cut into it towards the backbone. When the knife hits the backbone, stop.
- 10
The white line shown in the photo represents the back bone. Cut up to the red part, and stop your blade at the bone.
- 11
Score the back side of the fish. Using that as a guideline, cut into the fish towards the bone.
- 12
The white part is the back bone. Cut up to the red part, and stop your blade at the bone.
- 13
Insert the knife from the tail end over the bone. Hold the tail with your left hand as you do this.
- 14
Holding the tail with your left hand, run the knife over the bone as you cut it. You go from left to right as shown in the photo.
- 15
It will look like this.
- 16
Score the rest of the fish on the belly side in the same way, then cut into the fish towards the bone, holding your knife at a 45 degree angle.
- 17
Score and cut the back side towards the bone in the same way.
- 18
Insert the knife into the tail end as in Step 10, and cut and slide it over the bone. Work from the tail end towards the head end.
- 19
The fish is now divided into three parts.
- 20
There are some small bones in this regions, to slice through them with the knife.
- 21
Remove the small bones with fish bone tweezers and you're done! I bought mine from a 100 yen shop.
- 22
For pan frying you can just leave the skin on.
- 23
If you want to remove the skin, start from the head end and peel it off slowly with your hands. It should peel right off.
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