How do I clean turbot?

December 24, 2007 3:18 AM

How do I clean turbot?

Thanks to the Christmas rush, the fish counter at the supermarket wasn't cleaning purchases. Despite years of fishing with my dad, and generally being pretty handy in the kitchen, I am totally clueless when it come to actually cleaning the fish.

A quick Googling gives me helpful results like "clean the turbot " (Great. How?), "have your fishmonger clean the turbot" (Argh), or "Clean and Unclean foods listed in the bible" (not clean). Help?

Bonus Points: A quicker method for cleaning mussles apart from getting OCD with a wire sponge?

posted by romakimmy to food & drink (10 comments total)

Not specifically turbot, but searching for 'clean fish' got this page. Looks informative.

And a couple more

If you're willing to spend a few $ for the videos theres cleanafish.com
posted by missmagenta at 4:05 AM on December 24, 2007

What state is the fish in? Completely whole? Scales on or off? I'd be surprised if they sold you a fish that hadn't at least been gutted. Are you just talking about fabricating (fileting and/or cutting into steaks)?

One piece of advice - if you need to scale the fish, DO NOT do this indoors. It's messy, and you'll be finding fins for weeks. And surprise! - rotting fins smell just like rotting any other part of the fish.
posted by Caviar at 5:28 AM on December 24, 2007

I'd be surprised if they sold you a fish that hadn't at least been gutted.

I have definitely been sold an ungutted, scaled fish before.

There are right ways to do it, and there are wrong ways to do it. I did it the wrong way, I'm pretty sure, and lo and behold I ended up with a cleaned fish anyway. It didn't look pretty, but it tasty okay and didn't kill me.

In my one-time experience, basically I just cut it open front to back on the bottom and scooped and washed the guts out. It stinks a lot. The hard part is scaling the fish, but I understand one way to do it is hold the fish firmly and scrape against the scales with a rubber spatula.
posted by Deathalicious at 5:39 AM on December 24, 2007

It's completely whole, and it's similar to a flounder. They did at least scale the bugger. Being a flat fish, I'm clueless as to the gutting part.
posted by romakimmy at 6:05 AM on December 24, 2007

This site makes it sound fairly straightforward. (Scroll down to "Preparing flat fish.")
posted by veggieboy at 6:22 AM on December 24, 2007

This may be helpful, too.
posted by jenh at 6:24 AM on December 24, 2007

Here's Part II. Apparently, the trickier part...;)
posted by jenh at 6:29 AM on December 24, 2007

Turbot is a flat fish so here goes: -Get yourself a very sharp flexible knife and a dishcloth and some salt.
Damp the salt and put on the cloth where you later hold the fish tail after filietting to get a grip.
Cut off fish head close to cheek bones, at top of backbone. Save for stock.
Cut straight down the backbone and then use sharp flexible knife to cut away from backbone to the side; angle knife slightly down to cut close to rib bones, Repeat on other side of backbone and then on reverse side.
You should now have 4 sizeable fillets.
At tail end of fillet, meat side up, make a little cut to ease skin away from meat
Take cloth and, assuming you are right handed, hold tail skin and angling the knife as a barrier across the meat, both pull the skin and push the meat at the same time and thus the skin comes off. Repeat on other 3 fillets. Turbot as you probably know is not strong tasting and is a "carrier" of sauces. Being in "la bella Roma" you will doubtless make better sauces than I. Enjoy.
posted by adamvasco at 7:08 AM on December 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

In tukey turbot is called kalkan, and very often they cut it across the body into elongated fish teaks, flour it, and fry it. Pix and explanations here. Simple. Squeeze of lemon, parsely garnish. You don't have to worry about the skin - you can peel it off, and you don't lose meat from trying to skin the bony skin plates off.
posted by zaelic at 6:25 PM on December 24, 2007

Thanks to all. Despite having a shitty knife to work with, I managed to gut it fairly easily, sliced it in half about midway, and the end result was great.
posted by romakimmy at 7:38 AM on December 25, 2007