yak2you2
2012-07-08 09:29:18
Everybody knows that precision cuts, removing all little bits of gut and gill, and cleaning the veins and kindey cavity is important, but there are a few often overlook suttlties that need to be considered too.
A quick scrape to remove the sealice, avoiding undo scale loss, are fairly well known, but often overlooked.
This one, is rarely considered, but really is important in making a better looking product. After you conk the fish, if you can, just slip the gaff up under the gill to haul it aboard. Most of us just stick the fish right through the cheeks with the gaff, and never think twice about it. I mean, nobody is going to eat this part, so who cares right? True, but having a big un-necessary hole in the side of the salmon's head just makes it look rougher when they're laid out on the ice at the markets. I know, sometimes it can't be avoided, but when you walk through the markets and look at tables full of troll caught, you notice that most of them have the cheek wounds, it's just a bad habit of ours. It takes a while to break yourself of it, but in the end, if more of us did it, it would help our product's marketability.
my .02