How to skin and clean sharks
Auto

How to skin and clean sharks

CLEANING AND PREPARING THE SHARK FOR EATING

If you have never cooked those little sharks that one catches in the bays and waves, you are missing out on a great deal. Some call them sand sharks, but they are actually called dogfish sharks (Mustelus canis). At least this is what is caught along the Atlantic coast of North America from Main to Florida.

Note that the dogfish do not have those sharp, pointed teeth that cut and tear at their prey. They crush and grind instead. The dogfish is relatively harmless and shy. They come in various shades of gray and have white bellies.

The purpose of this page is not to tell you about sharks, but to tell you how to deal with them once caught if you intend to turn them into tasty morsels.

The main thing to keep in mind is that sharks urinate through their skin. This also applies to related species such as skate and skate. They say that smaller, younger sharks and related species generally don’t have bad taste, but I prefer to treat them all the same. The unpleasant taste is that of ammonia. As soon as a shark or related species dies, the ammonia taste and smell begin to permeate. Urea-like compounds in shark blood will immediately begin to break down into ammonia.

Here’s the key to cleaning your shark and preventing the buildup of offending odors and tastes:

1. As soon as the shark is caught, remove its head, gut, bleed and skin it:

What you’ll need: A sharp fillet knife, stainless steel needle-nose pliers, a towel, a relatively clean surface, cool water, and a cooler with plenty of ice. It wouldn’t hurt to have Kevlar or wire mesh gloves if handling a shark with large teeth. You may also want to have a hammer or club to kill a shark that is too large for you to handle before attempting to remove its head. The refrigerator must be large enough to hold all of the shark meat that you will be storing.

A word of caution. The dogfish, as noted above, do not have sharp teeth, but other sharks do, and care should be taken when handling a live shark with razor-sharp teeth and snapping jaws.

A. Having a relatively clean surface to work with the shark’s body after the head has been removed and the shark bled out. The idea is to prevent sand and gravel from coming into contact with the shark’s meat. You can remove the head, then use some water to rinse off the rest of the shark and place it on your clean work area.

B. Put a towel over the head, hold the shark in a safe and stable position and use a club on the head to kill it.

C. Use the fillet knife to remove the head and let the carcass bleed out for a couple of minutes. Run fillet knife through underside of shark; from where the head was removed to where the interior cavity ends.

Remove the entrails.

D. Rinse the sand from the body and from the internal cavity where the viscera were removed, and then place the body on your work area.

E. Use the fillet knife to remove all the fins, cutting them close to the body. Cut the tail right where the tail begins to thicken from the underlying meat.

F. Run the fillet knife just under the skin from the end of the open abdominal cavity to where the tail was removed. Next, run the fillet knife under the skin on top of the shark where the head was removed and cut the skin from the head end to the tail end. Shark skin is now separated from the top and bottom into left and right halves.

G. Shark skin is difficult to remove, but once you get started and have a decent grip, the meat can be ripped off. Take your needle-nose pliers and pinch them into a corner of the skin at the top, at the head on one side. Pinch a good bit of skin, and then, holding the tweezers tightly, twist them once or twice so that the skin wraps around the end of the tweezers. Hold tight and pull a few times so the skin starts to peel away from the meat. Punch a hole in the shark with your other hand (a friend is helpful here) and pull hard to continue ripping the skin until the entire side of the skin has been removed. Once you’ve ripped off a pretty good portion, you can remove the skin tongs and use them to grasp the skin near the areas that are still attached to the meat to remove more skin. Do the same with the other half of the skin that you haven’t removed yet. Since the skin is so tough, you may be able to remove the entire section at once. If the skin tears from the main piece, simply pinch the skin again and roll it up again until you’ve ripped it off more. Continue the process until all the skin is removed.

2. Once you’ve done the steps in #1, you’ll see a dark or red stripe running down both sides of the meat. Use the fillet knife to cut just below the dark surface to remove it. Cut back below if the darkness or red is still quite pronounced. Depending on the side of the cooler, you can cut the shark into pieces that will allow them to fit in the cooler.

3. Immediately place the finished product on ice to keep it cold until ready to cook. You can cut small sharks into 3, 4 or more inch pieces to put in a plastic bag when you put them on ice.

4. Fresh or thawed, you can soak it in milk or baking soda for about an hour.

Note that this applies to sharks that you have caught and know to be fresh. If you’re buying shark or ray, smell it to see if you smell like ammonia. If so, please do not buy it or order another part.

The idea is to prevent the shark from deteriorating and starting the conversion to an ammonia process. In all likelihood, if you follow the handling steps above, you probably won’t have to soak it in milk or baking soda. I just do it out of habit.

TO ENJOY!!!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *