TECHNIQUES
By Erwin Bursik
E
VERY sports angler who decides to keep one of the fish he catches to feed himself, his family and friends is morally obliged to carefully handle and prepare this delicate flesh to maximise this valuable commodity. Daryl Bartho’s features on how to fillet a ’cuda in the May 2018 issue of SKI-BOAT magazine has been highly acclaimed. In view of this Daryl agreed to prepare a moderately sized yellowfin tuna — the size that most South African offshore anglers catch — so that our readers will know how to get the most out of their catches. Of course those of our fraternity who catch the huge yellowfin tuna off Cape Point will have more to work with than the rest of us, but the system of filleting or portioning stays the same. Before Daryl even starts the process of making the first slice he cleans and sanitises the stainless steel table, cutting board and knives. During the whole exercise he and the other staff who were processing fish continually clean their knives and work surfaces to ensure the final fish fillets are top quality so that when they go on show in the shop they look perfect. After starting to work on the yellowfin he showed me the number of tiny scales that are dislodged before the skin of the portion on which he was working is deposited on the worktable. Once that’s done he wipes the fillets and work surface to ensure the tiny scales don’t end up on someone’s sushi plate.
SKI-BOAT July/August 2018 • 25