Flounder, an ocean-dwelling flatfish, can be difficult to fillet due to its narrow profile. After watching this helpful video with chef Howard "Corky" Clark from The Culinary Institute of America, though, you'll be able to tackle the task. Corky suggests purchasing your fish whole, with its head and guts removed (or, if you've caught the fish yourself, follow his steps after you've degutted the fish and removed its head), as you can better ensure the quality of a fish when it's whole. He then outlines the stages in which you'll fillet your flounder, starting with the backbone, moving along the ribs, and then eventually removing the skin and the fin meat.
For 60 years, The Culinary Institute of America has been setting the standard for excellence in professional culinary education. In this video series, experienced chefs and educators show you how to tackle essential cooking techniques
Hi, I'm Chef Corky Clark from the Culinary Institute, and I'm going to show you this kitchen basic: filleting a flounder.
The flounder is a very common fish; it is one of the top ten species we eat in the United States. I would definitely recommend, whenever possible, that you purchase your fish with the head and guts removed, but whole. You will then be able to ensure the quality of the fish a lot better. I would also recommend this because you can then utilize the bones for your stock.
We're going to follow the lateral line of the fish up toward the head. So where the lateral line joins the head, I'm going to put my finger and I'm going to feel for the backbone. The backbone's going to be a little round thing. Now I'm going to put the broad side of my knife down - try not to use the tip of your knife - and check that you're right on the backbone. With the broad side of the knife we'll cut down just to the backbone, and you don't want to cut all the way down immediately; we want to do this in stages. You notice I'm putting my finger in there each time, to ensure that I am on top of the backbone. If I do it in stages, if I get off the backbone a little bit, it's easy to get back on it. I'm going to do that all the way down to the tail or caudal fin. Then we're going to start at the head again, and now use the tip of your knife. I'm going to cut directly beside the backbone. When I cut directly beside the backbone, that's going to loosen any of the flesh that lives right there beside the backbone, and you'll get a much better yield.
Now it's important that we use a flexible knife, a fillet knife. Put your knife in, and let it run horizontally right along the ribs. Of course the ribs are going to go in this direction and this direction, so we're going to put our knife directly upon the ribs pointing to one side. Support this with your less dominant hand. Do not saw and do not pull, but make smooth even slices, and always let your knife come out where it wants to. If you're directly on top of those ribs, you're going to get all the usable flesh. When we have the first side off, we're going to put the knife in again facing the other side to take off the second piece. Every time you saw or stop your knife, you're going to leave a mark in the fish, so use smooth even strokes. When we've cut both sides, we're going to put that one over there for the moment while we work on the first fillet. When we're working, we always keep a fish on ice.
You're going to notice that we actually have two types of flesh here. We have the fillet and we have the fin. What I'd like you to do is take your fingers and just loosen that fin meat that's of no real value to us right now. Now we'll move this piece to the edge of the board and use a non-flexible knife. Hold the fish down and use the tip of your knife to cut down to the skin. Now grab the skin from underneath, and wiggle the skin and the knife together, choking up with your left hand to keep your two hands close together. Wiggle a little bit at a time - it's not a race. You'll notice that that fin meat comes right off. The skin, after we take it off the fish, is of no value, so go ahead and throw that out.
We're going to lay that fillet here and take up the other one, and now when we did this side, I cut through two or three ribs. All you have to do is bring your knife underneath them; I'm not sure you'll even see them, but I'm certain you'll be able to feel them. Trim those bones off, and get rid of that. Now we'll skin this second fillet the same way we did the first. Start with the tip of your knife, cut down to the skin, wiggle the skin and the knife together, choking up. Cut a little bit at a time, keeping your knife flat.
Now, please remember to store skin-to-skin or flesh-to-flesh - and again, keep them on ice. That's how we fillet and skin a flatfish.