Thinking of having your favorite seafood catfish but all of sudden you got a second thought of who will clean it? Catfishes have very strong and hard body structure compared to other fishes and it’s not really easy to clean or skin them. Most of you usually face problem while skinning or cleaning the catfish but it’s not that difficult. The meat of catfish if it is properly cooked will surely tickle your taste buds and then you will realize your effort was worth it. There are many ways to clean and skin the catfish but here are some easy ways of doing the task. Read on.
Complexity Level: Moderate
Time Required: 45 Minutes
Resources Required:
- A catfish
- Fillet knife
- Wooden board
- Butcher knife
- Large nail
- Claw hammer
- Table
Instructions:
1. Collect all the required items that will be needed: As mentioned in the above list of required resources, you should get all the necessary items for cleaning and skinning catfish.
2. Dead fish: Always be careful and check if the catfish is dead as a live catfish will cause you bad injuries. If you have any doubt, cut the tail of the fish to see if it bleeds or not. Catfishes have sharp bones and that can give you a sharp and painful poke. Hence, be careful before skinning it.
3. Be careful: Carefully cut the skin from the body of catfish. Start from back of the gills. Always be careful by not rupturing any of the organs of your fish, then slowly try to take off all the fins. You can use pliers for holding the fins.
4. Hang the catfish: You can use tree branch or anything as per your preferences to hang the catfish and to cut and clean the skin from down to center of the back.
5. Use pliers: Take off the skin of the catfish from the head to tail with the help of pliers. Usually, this takes some time but practice makes a man perfect. Hence keep practicing.
6. Pull off: Pull off the skin of the catfish from head to tail. Cut the tail if it had not been removed already and head too with the help of huge knife.
7. Clean it: Wash it thoroughly with cold water and clean it properly. Then, soak it in a fish bowl and add some little salt if you are not cooking it instantly. Catfish tastes delicious if properly cooked.
Frequently Asked Questions:
How to clean a small catfish?
You can follow the same instruction as given above. Small catfishes have soft skin compared to the bigger and are easy to handle. But you have to be very careful when comes to small catfishes because they have sharp spines and that can give you a sharp and painful poke. Use proper tools because that plays an important role in pealing the skin and cleaning the catfish. Small catfish can be easily cooked as they have little meat compared to the big ones and they do taste great.
Quick Tips :
- Use sharp and better knives instead of blunt knives to get the job done quickly and easily. Blunt knife will not only waste your time but will also waste lot of meat.
- If catfish is your favorite food then it’s better to get pliers from the market, which are specially designed for skinning catfish. These pliers are easily available in the market.
- Spurs of the catfishes can be really painful if they get stuck in your skin, so be careful while cleaning and skinning the catfish. That is located just behind the gills of the catfish.
Things To Watch Out:
If you are fishing in dirty water or you are buying a fish which is from dirty water, itâs normal that fish will taste a bit different. Hence, avoid fishing in dirty water and buying fishes of dirty water.
