Fish Prep Requires Proper Gadgets

August 21, 2011 by Lisa

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When you purchase fish from the fish monger, your initial decisions will revolve around how much you want, and how ready to cook it is. For instance, do you want fillets ready to pan fry, or are you willing to take a whole fish and take care of the flesh, fins, scales, gills, and guts yourself? Do you want tail off or tail on? Fillets J cut or V cut? Pan dressed fish or whole round? Fish steaks? Do you want the skin on so that you get the good healthy fat, or deep skinned fish? Lots of decisions!!

The advantage of buying a whole fish uncleaned is the price. If you are willing to put in a little sweat equity as it were, you can save a bundle. In order to prepare the fish for eating, you will have a little work to do in the kitchen, and you will need to have the right equipment at hand. This article will tell you some of the things that can come in handy. They will likely pay for themselves over time, based on the money you save each time you buy fish at the market!

Here are the basic tools that will come in handy when it comes to fish:

- Glove hand covering is wise if you are dealing with things like shelling shellfish. Those oyster shells can cut you!

- Fish pliers are not just for when you are out in the boat catching the little guys. They come in handy in the kitchen for taking out salmon tines. The home improvement store can supply you with needle nose pliers, and you can clean them afterwards for kitchen use.

- Fish scaling has got to be the ickiest of all fish cleaning jobs, and you know that if you have ever cleaned a whole bunch of fish. While electric fish scalers exist, manual ones will serve you just as well.

- A fish gutting knife or two is essential. It is curved and especially designed for the task.

- Kitchen shears should be clean and sharp.The ones you use for cutting poultry will work, but again, make sure they are clean before using.

- Having a fillet knife is a good thing if you want to be like the pro chefs. You can live without it, but personally, it’s a good thing.

- If you are going to clean shellfish, make sure you have knives for clam, shrimp, and oysters.

If you are embarking on a weight loss plan that includes fish, like the diet HCG weight loss plan, all of these utensils will come in handy. Just assemble them before beginning the diet days. This way you will know in advance that you have on hand all of your necessary and useful HCG diet tools.