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HOW TO FILLET A FLAT FISH

Filleting a flat fish is pretty straightforward, as their meat is well separated from the rest of the body, except for all the guts in one part of the fish. Otherwise you have four fillets to take care of in a flatfish, two on the upper side and two on the belly side of the fish. Here is an example of filleting a turbot, one of many sorts of flatfish.

Place the fish on the table with its bellyside down. The spine of the fish runs from the tail to the head and should be easily identifiable by touch. This is also your "reference" point. Slide the knife inside the fish (or just cut thorugh the skin) along the spine all the way from the head to the tail. Make sure that the blade goes downwards against the table so that you can feel that you have cut the flesh along the spine and down to the bones that radiate to the sides from the spine.

Then angle the blade to an almost horizontal position and slide the knife back and forth towards the fin and along the rib bones. You should feel the contact with the bones at all points so that you get as much of the flesh as possible. Slide the knife towards the fin and then continue along the fin down to the tail to cut out the first fillet. Cut it off and lay aside.

Repeat the same procedure on the other (left or right) side of the spine.

Turn the fish around and cut the next two fillets in the same manner as you did above.

Lastly you need to remove the skin from the fish - hold the fillet on its tail side and make a small cut in it so that you can start separate the skin from the flesh. Then hold the skin with your fingers and continue to slide with the very slightly angled knife along the skin and on towards the other side of the fillet. The skin should come off readily, otherwise your knife angle may have been wrong (too high angle will cut through the skin, and too low angle can leave some of the flesh attached to the skin). Trim the fillets of any gut rests, fins, etc. Rinse the in cold water, pat dry with a paper towel, and now they are ready to be used.