How To Skin A Fish

Fish is a highly nutritious food, packed with many essential vitamins and minerals, which keep our hair and skin healthy. While most of us love to eat fish, very few know how to cook it, forget about skinning it. For the second task i.e. skinning a fish, you first need to know that you can do it at both the times - when the fish is raw and when it has been cooked. As for the rest of the task, the following lines have been written with the same purpose. Go through the following lines and get a number of tips to help you know how to skin a fish.

Skinning A Fish

Fish Fillets

Items Needed

Fish Fillets
Cutting Boards
Knife

Instructions

Take the raw fillet and place it on the cutting board, with the skin against the board.
Sprinkle some coarse salt on your fingers before starting the skinning process. It would help you to get a better grip on the fillets.
Check the fillet to make sure that there are no bones inside it. In case there are, either cut them away or pull them out with tweezers (or needle-nose pliers).
Starting at the bottom by the tail, cut through fillet to skin. Now, turn the knife in such a way that the blade is flat. At this point of time, the knife should be between the skin and the flesh.
Next, you need to angle the knife, very slightly down, in such a way that its edge points toward the skin. This particular step will ensure that you end up cutting only the skin, and little flesh.
Holding the skin tightly and making use of a gentle back-and-forth sawing motion, slide the knife all the way down the fillet. With this, you will have the flesh from the skin cut properly.
You can also cut a cooked fillet by grabbing the skin at the tail end with tongs, as soon as the cooking process is over.

Whole Fish

Items Needed

Fish
Cutting Board
Knife

Instructions

In order to skin a whole fish, make a shallow incision at the base of its tail. Do not cut any meat, while you make the incision.
Scrape the skin with the blade of the knife and free the skin enough to make you grasp the fish firmly with your fingers.
Hold the body of the fish down with a free hand. Use the other hand to pull the skin towards the head, and finally over it.

Additional Tips

Choose a long and flexible knife to skin the fish. Make sure the blades are strong. Also ensure that the blades of the knife are sharp.
In case you want to remove the skin after cooking the fillet, you can still scale the raw fish. This is because the scales fall off during cooking and can mix into the cooked dish.
Take care of personal safety while using sharp knifes. Do not skin the fish hurriedly or you might end up hurting yourself.

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