Tips for Determining Freshness of a Fish

Video Transcript

"Hi! I'm Bruce Marnie on behalf of Expert Village. In this segment we will show you how to select a fish for ultimate freshness. The fish we will be filleting today is called the Uku; it's the Hawaiian name. The common name is Gray Snapper and it's in the family of Lutjanidae and it belongs to the same family of the Red Snapper and the Pink Snapper. It is a mid water fish that is often found on the outer reef margins in waters ranging from about 100 to 200 or more feet deep. The fish generally comes in sizes from about 2 pounds at its smallest all the way up to about 25 pounds at its largest. Today we have about a 3 or 4 pounder here that we are going to fillet. There are several factors to consider when you are selecting a fish for ultimate freshness. The first thing to consider is the smell or lack thereof. An actually fresh fish should not have a fishy smell at all and I realize it is sometimes difficult to determine this when the fish are cellophane wrapped in the market but at least consider that when you are selecting a fish in the open market. A good fresh fish should not have any fishy smell. Secondly you should take a look at the eye. The eye should be dark black, very shiny not cloudy like it has a cataract and it should also be very turgid and bulging from at least follow the contour of the fish's body. It should not be sunken in. A sunken in or concave eye indicates old age not fresh fish. The next thing you want to look at is the general color of the fish. The fish should have a uniform nice shine to it. It should not have any discolored areas and in particular, look at the scales and the fins. The fins should not have any dry edges or cracked portions. The scales should not be peeling up or dried out like the edge of your finger nail and the tail should be the same way. It should be uniformly moist, not dried or curled or white in color. Another thing to consider that is very important is that the gills should be bright red. If you lift up the opercular plate and look at the gills, you should see bright red colors on the gills. Not a dull or faded red color. Bright red indicates good fresh fish. "