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Skinning a bonito


myocard

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Seems all recipes call for bonito fillets to be skinned.

I tried this recently but attempts to remove the skin with a fillet knife were destroying the fillets. I used a method that is successful with flathead - cut through the fillet to the skin and lay the blade along between the fillet and the skin, pulling the skin in a sawing motion, rather than cutting with the knife. Having said that, I don't usually remove flathead skin either.

I abandoned the attempt and fried the fillets with the skin on. The skin shriveled away to nothing and the fillets came out great.

Is there a particular method for skinning bonito? Is it necessary?

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I love bonito as sashimi, so skinning raw is a must.

I've put the fillets in the freezer for about half hour-45 mins... so they firm up but not quite frozen.

I've found that this, plus an extremely sharp filleting knife helps a a fair bit.

Bottom line though... bonito flesh is delicate (mushy), so it's always gonna be a tough go to get nice clean fillets off.

Also, make sure you get the blood line out... tastes horrible in my opinion!

Good luck

Mike

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Thanks for the tips.

That bonito looks great George.

I could get a fillet off the bonito OK - and I don't usually fillet fish, I like to cook them whole.

Filleting the fish was straightforward, as was removing the bloodline.

It is getting the skin off the fillet that I found next to impossible with bonito.

Could you skin them before cutting the fillet off?

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I should add that it was comments regarding the edibility of bonito on this site that convinced me to eat one in the first place. Usually they would just be bait.

It was delicious - pan fried in oil with some black pepper and lots of lemon juice.

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