So you've gone fishing for the first time or an adventurous neighbor has caught more fish than he can eat and passed a few on to you. Whatever the case, you have a pile of fish that look strangely appetizing, but you have no clue how to cook them.
It's best to begin by removing the scales. Removing scales isn't as complicated as it may seem. You can de-scale fish by scraping away the scales with a scaling knife, scaler, or even a regular spoon. Scaling knives are smooth on one end and jagged on the other. Scalers are basically rectangular shaped pieces of metal with multi-sections of teeth attached to wodden handles. As far as spoons go, simply grab one from your dinnerware drawer, hold the mouthpiece with your thumb, and scrape the base of the spoon across the fishes' bodies.
Scaling fish can be pretty messy so you might want to cut away the bottom of a paper bag and scale the fish from inside the tubular portion. Another way to avoid scale messes is to scale your fish in a sink of water using the carrot scraping technique. Better yet, if you scale your fish outdoors you can practically forget about scaling messes. One more thing, some folks like wearing a glove on the hand that holds the fish to keep it from slipping.
After scaling fish, you must gut them by slicing their bellies open and removing the guts from inside. Like scaling, there are multiple ways of gutting. The basics are the same and pretty much go like this: (1) Lay the fish on its side atop a counter, or table, or cutting board. (2) Insert a sharp knife tip into the fish's anus. (3) Slit the belly open all the way to the tail in one direction and the head in the other direction. Keep the slit deep enough to pierce the belly but not too deep. You must blindly avoid cutting the guts because they may contain contaminants you don't want spilling into the flesh. (4) Cut the head between the gill covers in a downward motion until you feel the backbone. Do not cut the backbone. (5) Now hold the head area upward and cut the flesh away from the head to separate the parts. (6) Cut a v-shape in the head above the chin and with one hand pull the upper head while the other hand pulls the chin area in opposite directions. As the head pieces part, the stream of guts attached to the chin side should slide from the fish's belly as you pull the chin toward the tail.
After scaling and gutting your fish, you can cook it as is, or cut it into fillets first. If you choose to cook it as it, you can make preparation easy with a simple recipe below.
If you choose to fillet your fish, you'll need to slit open the back/dorsal area. Both sides must be slit from head to tail in order to pull away the fillets. The main thing here is to avoid cutting into ribs and backbones inside the fish. You want remove the bones intact if possible. After you've made all slits, cut both sides of the fish away from the tail and away from the head. You should be left with two fillets and a carcass.
Now that you have your fillets, you might want to de-skin the fish. You don't have to...but if you'd prefer skinless fillets...take a knife and slice downward from the surface of the meat to the skin (which should be against the cutting surface). Angle the cut so your fillets won't look tiny. When you reach the skin, turn the knife so that it is horizontal to the cutting surface and slice the skin away from the fish. Make cuts about one to two inches wide until you've removed all the flesh from the skin.
Another way to remove skin is to insert and slide a knife between the skin and flesh; and then to continue sliding the knife as close to the skin as possible until you reach the tail on one end and then repeating the procedure cutting toward and through the head area. This technique can be used for non-fillets also.
Easy recipes: Fillets - Sprinkle salt and pepper on fish. Heat butter or margarine in a skillet careful not to let it brown. Cook fish on both sides until meat changes from shiny clear to opaque white, pink, etcetera, depending on the type of fish. Sprinkle with lemon and serve with rice and veggie.
When cooking whole, sprinkle with salt and dip in flour or cornmeal. Deep fry or bake at 375 degrees. Cooking time will depend on type and size of fish.