Don’t know if this is any help to anyone but a quick run through of how I deal to a kingi.
Catch, iki, bleed, chill.
I always gut & gill at sea
Set up & organisation is important
Remove head & tail, including wings; this leaves a trunk which I find easier to handle
Now comes the hardest bit, looking from the head end locate the backbone
Looking at a fillet you can see an eye of muscle one side of the backbone & the belly on the other. The trick is to try & cut down the middle of the fillet to the backbone, leaving the pin bones on the belly side.
It is then easy enough to take the top side of the fillet off.
Cut of the belly working through the bones in the gut cavity & coming right up to the anal vent.
At this point the tray of head, wings & belly are done. Head for boiling, wings & belly, smoked or roasted.
Once skined cut into smaller pieces to make trimming & handling easier
Its then time to tidy up, trim of blood line & any untidy bits
Cut to size for containers
At this point that’s me done normally; the next photo is how I cut portions for cooking
One kingi processed for consumption
Ahab wrote: BTW if you get a John Dory do you reckon you could do a similar post? I rarely get them and have a bit of a fiddle with their unusual design. Leatherjackets would be another useful one. This thread would be a great one to sticky, and perhaps a link to those vids in the Newbie's forum too.
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Finally remembered to takes some photos while filleting a John Dory, so as requested here is how I do it. I always iki, slurry, gut & gill at sea
Set up
Cutting down at a fairly steep angle working your way around the edge of the fillet
With the knife a bit flatter release the skin near the tail
Work way back up towards the belly
Cut down behind the gill plate
You are now ready to start removing the fillet; because of the row of small spikes on a JD this is harder than with a snapper. A flexible knife is a must.
I use my thumb to gentle lift the fillet while trying to keep the knife blade as flat as possible, it is necessary to bend the blade a bit to achieve this. Using small strokes & guided by the fishes backbone ease the fillet off.
Once you get to the backbone cut up & over it. I now remove the fillet from the back of the fish, with a little practice this will come off in one or two strokes.
Come back up to the top of the fillet & cut through the rib cage.
You may need one more cut to release the fillet
Repeat for the other side & you have one filleted JD
Trim of the bones from the belly cavity
Because I’m a fussy chef I usually trim of the little flap of skin at the tail
You now have a couple of JD fillets ready for consumption. Unlike a lot of fish there are no pin bones in a JD, in addition the scales are so small there is no need to scale then if you are going to eat them skin on.
The skin of JD’s is SO good that I personally believe it is a food crime to skin them. If you are going to skin them it’s no different to a snapper (& I aint going to show you here cause I’d never do that to such a delicious fish)
Depending on the size of the fish you may need to cut them down to achieve a perfect dinner portion (the fish shown is about 2kg so a fillet is definitely a bit big for a portion).
There are two approaches to this, the 1st is to follow the natural divides of the fillet, these divide the fillet into 3 pieces running lengthwise
The other is to cut across these natural divides to achieve a more compact portion rather than the long portions achieved by the 1st method
(for a smaller fillet I’d just cut it in half, not third)
Two fillets portioned 2 different ways
Which you chose is largely personal preference, the 1st method is in some ways easier as you follow a natural seam, it can also be slightly easier to cook as it is one piece.
The 2nd method can look better on a plate.
The next step for a chef is to put a few cuts just through the skin, in chef terms this is known a ciseler.
There are several reasons for this;
1. Help prevent the fillet curling up when you cook it
2. Allow heat to penetrate better aiding even cooking
3. Allow more even seasoning
4. It looks good when the fish is cooked
Your fillet is now ready for the pan.
At this point I thought I’d show you how to cook crispy skin John Dory, one of the greatest things to come out of the ocean (right up there with seared scallops & sautéed scampi)
1st get organised
· Flaky sea salt (normal salt will work but this stuff is much better, if yah rich Maldon sea salt is the bomb).
· Clarified butter (oil works but doesn’t taste as good, whole butter also works but requires more skill to use).
· Heavy based frying pan (preferably a good black iron pan that is oven proof).
· A good flexible fish stainless steel slice (don’t skimp on this, plastic is **** & some of the cheap ones a very thick & heavy with no flex).
As with any fish cookery the fillet needs to be dry or it will stick, stew & not get a beautiful caramelised surface.
Heat the pan on a medium/low heat, don’t allow it to get to hot.
It’s a bit hard to see but the 1st photo shows the pan on high heat
The second medium/low as desired.
The single biggest fault most people make with crispy skin fish is to think they need a high heat. To get the skin crisp you must 1st remove all the moisture, a high heat will caramelise & eventually burn the natural sugars in the fish before the skin goes crisp. A medium/low heat will allow the moisture to be slowly driven from the skin & then caramelise the sugars.
Season the skin side of the fish generously
Add a good dollop of clarified butter to your moderately hot pan
Allow to heat up, it should spread evenly across the pan & shine or just shimmer, definitely not smoke! (A bit hard to see in the photo)
Next place the fish in the pan skin side down, it is necessary to hold the fillet flat with a fish slice so that it does not curl up. Don’t squash the **** out of it, just enough pressure to keep it flat.
Once the fish stays flat without the fish slice (a minute or so), season the exposed side.
Now comes the hard bit, allow the fish to cook on the skin slowly & gently until the skin is crisp. I often tip the pan back & forth to ensure the fat is evenly distributed.
The fish will need at least 3 minutes on the skin & often longer. After a couple of minutes it is possible to check it by carefully releasing it from the pan (notice I have a very flexible fish slice inverted & bent so it is loaded it such a way that the edge scrapes along the pan), don’t tear the skin or it won’t look pretty. Don’t do this too soon or the skin will not have cooked enough & will tear.
If it’s beautiful & crisp sweet.
If not flip it back on its skin & keep cooking. If its colouring but not crisping turn it down, if it’s cooking but is soggy, turn heat up & remove some oil (these temp adjustments are subtle).
You now have a choice; if it’s a thin fillet a couple more minutes in the pan will do the trick. A thicker fillet like the one shown is VASTLY better cooked in the oven.
The oven shown is a commercial fan forced oven hence the 150°c, a conventional oven look at 165-175°c. This took 3 minutes to cook through.
Always warm your plate, meal stays warm & much nicer to eat.
A there you have it a perfectly cooked bit of crisp skin John Dory
As with any white fish just cooked through is ideal, I’ve actually gone a fraction under here so it shows in the photo (& because I prefer to eat it this way)
A bit of a marathon, kind of got out of control. Hope this is useful to someone out there, if you can be arsed give it a go. Very hard to beat Johnny cooked like this.
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