1,528 easy and fully explained recipes, with +66K photos and 78 videos

This site uses only a few technical cookies necessary for its operation. By continuing to browse, you accept their use.
To find out more...

Remove bones from fish

Let's talk about fish: It's not a scoop, it's much more pleasant to eat fish from which all the bones have been carefully removed, even if it's a rather painful and time-consuming job, the result is worthy of your efforts.

Here are some important points to keep in mind.

14 K 5/5 (14 reviews)

Keywords for this post:Fish Bones Claw Flesh Fillet Fish steak

Last modified on: October 16^th 2021

For this post: Comment Follow Ask me a question Send to a friend

Remove bones from fish

the tool

No secret, you absolutely need a pair of fishbone pliers, it's really the essential tool with enough strength to be able to catch and remove a fishbone, usually very well hung.
You can use a pair of universal or fine-nosed tweezers, but it's not very practical (don't even think about recycling an old pair of tweezers, you won't get anywhere).
If you have to buy one, go for a stainless steel one, like the one on the picture above.

Finding the fish bones

This is not so easy, as they are usually almost invisible.
The best way is to put the fillet or the fish in front of you (on a plate if possible) and to pass your finger along the flesh, if the bones are not visible, on the other hand they can be felt.

Removing them

That's the trick, it's not obvious but there is a kind of "direction", fish bones are generally oriented from the head to the tail, from the central bone and slightly curved, schematically, like this:

arêtes de poisson

Add to this that there is a tip and a point, the tip being significantly larger than the point.
If you magnify it a lot, a fish bone looks like this:

arête zoom

When you have a fillet in front of you, it's the inside of the fish that you see, the fishmonger has cut the flesh along the central bone, and then all the other bones are cut off as well.
So they are in the flesh like this:

arêtes dans la chair

To remove them without too much difficulty, you have to go in the right direction with the pliers, grabbing the big end, and pull in the opposite direction.

arêtes sens de retrait

In other words, in the direction indicated by the green arrow, but especially not in the direction of the red arrows.
Well, it wouldn't be dramatic either, but 1) it will be harder and 2) you might tear off some flesh with the edge, which would be a shame.

So you have to do that for all the bones, until you run your finger over them and you don't feel any point, then move on to the next fillet.
Yes, yes, it's long and painful, but what a pleasure afterwards at the table...

To sum up: To remove the bones from a fillet or a fish steak, you need a good pair of bone grippers, and pull them in the opposite direction of their location.

Lasts posts

Oven height

When we put a dish or cake in the oven, we naturally tend to put it on the middle shelf, and that's what we usually do. But in some cases, this position and height can be a little tricky, so let's find out why.
October 8^th 20251,5625

The importance of sieving

In recipes that use a fine powder (flour, powdered sugar, etc.), you'll often see the advice to sift before using it. To sift is to pass the powder in question through a sieve (a very fine strainer) before incorporating it into your recipe. It's often advice, but is it really useful?
September 3^rd 20256,9393

The grease spray

As soon as you have something in a recipe that sticks to the mold, the question always arises as to how difficult it is to remove from the mold. There's nothing more frustrating than breaking your cake when unmolding it, because part of it has stuck in the mold. The classic way to avoid this is...
August 26^th 20256,3805

Cake moulds

When we make a cake, or a cake of the same rectangular shape, we usually take out our usual mould and tell ourselves that the recipe is anyway "for a cake", but is it really that simple?
August 25^th 20256,4875

Thinning out herbs

If you need to add a long-stemmed herb (tarragon, mint, verbena, thyme, etc.) to a recipe, you'll probably only need the leaves and not the stem, so you'll need to remove the leaves. Leaf removal means keeping only the beautiful leaves, and eliminating the ugly stems and leaves, but how do you do...
August 8^th 20254,6115

See all posts Random post RSS feeds

Other pages you may also like

Egg yolks and caster sugar

We often come across recipes where we need to mix egg yolks with caster sugar. This would appear to be a very ordinary and simple thing to do but, be warned, these two ingredients can behave oddly together.
February 15^th 201882 K 24.3

What is the difference between bakery and patisserie?

This is a question that you may well have asked yourself and which I will attempt to answer. In France the two trades of "boulangerie" (bakery) and "pâtisserie" (patisserie and confectionery) have always been quite distinct, but where exactly do the boundaries lie? .
February 7^th 2017133 K 14.1

Candied fruits: don't get ripped off

Do you like candied fruit? You might like to nibble a handful or add it to a recipe, like a classic fruit cake or delicious Italian specialities like panettone or sicilian epiphany pie.
June 21^th 201766 K 24.2

The beautiful story of the croissants

As you may have already noticed, cooking, baking and pastry-making are full of stories or legends, usually very romantic, about this or that product or recipe. This is often the case for named recipes, for example tarte tatin, peach melba, paris-brest and many others, but it also applies to very...
October 10^th 201819 K5

The bitterness of endives

As I write these lines, we are entering the endive season, and if you like it, it's time to enjoy it, if possible with your local producers. Endive is good, but the reproach that is often made of it, and children in particular, is: "It's bitter! And it is (somewhat) true of course, endives...
February 9^th 201914 K4.9