"Zippering" Fish

[DannyW]

Seeing the Lackster's post about removing the pin bones out of smoked trout made me remember a technique I learned last year on a trip to BWCA. Ya'll probably already know this but I was amazed that I had never even heard of it. The guy that showed it to me called it "zippering a fish". (BTW...this technique will only work on skinned, uncooked fish, so it would not work for the Lacksters purposes.)

First, fillet the fish as you normally do. Then make a small 1" cut on both sides of the lateral line.

It will look like this.



Grasp the fillet by one of the sides and the lateral line and gently pull them apart. Repeat for the other half of the fillet.





In the end you will have 3 pieces of fish from one fillet. A top boneless half, a lower boneless half, and the lateral line with all the pin bones.



The two fillets go in the hot oil, the lateral line gets tossed to the sea gulls. Hope this makes sense.

 

[DannyW]

BTW Paymaster, if this doesn't belong here feel free to move it. Didn't have a question so I couldn't post it On Topic. And since it is a food preparation technique, I put it here.

 

[NCHillbilly]

I do something similar with pin-bone type fish, but no need to seperate the whole fillet. Just cut on each side of the pin bones from the big end of the fillet down to where they end about halfway down, and discard that little strip. Leaves you with a mostly whole fillet with a narrow V on one end.