8 Easy Steps to Prepare a Flatfish for Cooking

If you want to try your hand at preparing a flatfish for cooking, you’ll need to the right utensils and skills. These are easy to get hold of and learn.

A fresh fish has bright, slippery skin, tight scales, bright eyes and gills. It should feel firm to the touch and, if it’s fresh, should smell of the sea.

Before cooking, you may need to trim, scale, clean or gut, bone and skin the fish.

To get a flatfish ready for cooking you need to have a set of specific utensils to do the job well. These are:

• Scissors
• Small sharp knife
• Plastic bag
• Chopping board
• Large cook's knife
• Teaspoon
• Filleting or medium-sized cook's knife
• Tweezers

A flatfish makes four fillets, two from each side. Keep the knife as close to the bones as possible and make bold strokes as tentative ones can damage the delicate flesh of the fish. If you notice a small incision in the fish that’s just where the guts were removed at sea.

• Put the fish dark side up on a board and cut off the fins. Working from head to tail, cut along the backbone. Make a semicircular cut just below the head, through half the thickness of the fish.
• Slant the knife against the backbone. Use short strokes to separate the left-hand fillet from the bone.
• Make a thick cut just above the tail and remove the fillet. Repeat for the right-hand fillet and for the two fillets on the other side.

You can cook a flatfish whole and with or without the head. Wash your hands before preparation.

After being scaled, cleaned and trimmed, a flatfish can be cooked whole, with or without the head. You have to scale, clean, skin and bone the fish.

Put the fish into a plastic bag and onto a chopping board. Hold the tail in one hand and work the knife from tail to head, using the bag to catch the scales.

Remove from bag and make a semicircular slit just behind the head, on the dark side to open up the body cavity. Scrape the entrails out with a small sharp knife and/or a teaspoon. Wash well under cold running water. Cut off the fins with scissors, close to the body.

Put the fish on a board, dark side uppermost. Make a slit across the skin just above the tail. Holding the tail tightly, pull the skin towards the head. Remove the white skin in the same way.

Only large flatfish such as Dover sole are suitable for boning. Smaller ones like plaice are too delicate. Once a fish has been boned, you can stuff it.

Learning how to prepare a flatfish for cooking takes some practice but once you have the routine down pat, you’ll be doing it in a snap for many delicious meals.

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