First Steps to Descale a Fish

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Bruce Marnie and on behalf of Expert Village in this segment we are going to see how to scale a saltwater fish. The basic steps in scaling a saltwater fish is to lay the fish on its side on a cutting board, holding the head with the commercial scaler or a spoon in your hand stroke the fish starting from the tail up towards the head like this. If you were to use the spoon you would do basically the same technique as such stroking with the edge of the spoon towards the head of the fish. You will notice a problem with scaling is that all of the scales fly all over the kitchen and make a mess everywhere we can mimize them mess of flying scales in the kitchen by simply moving the fish into a sink filled with cold water. Be sure that your sink has an adequate particle trap in the drain because you don't want to let the scales go down the drain after your finished and you have to drain the water out of the sink. So we will move the fish into the water completely submerging it and just continue the scaling process under water in your kitchen sink. All the scales just float off into the water and eventually collect in the sink trap in the base of the sink. Continue scaling all the way up to the edge of every fin right up to the edge of the fin here. But be careful not to poke your finger on the fin rays of the fish especially on the dorsal fin where the rays can be very sharp. That's why the scaler has a fairly long handle so that you can reach those areas without endangering your fingers or your hands. Keep the fish underwater and just keep stroking uniformly towards the head of the fish until all of the scales are removed. Turn the fish over and do the same thing on the other side. Starting from the tail work your way towards the head. Once all of the scales are removed you should be able to run your hand from the tail towards the front of the fish towards the head without feeling your fingers grabbing on any scales. The fish should feel very smooth at that point. "