How to fillet Flat Fish

In the video guides we used Plaice & Lemon Sole as examples to show how to fillet flat fish, the same principles can be applied for all flat fish. Plaice is a beautiful fish with dark top skin and bright orange spots. It is great value and is one of the most popular flat fish. With this quick and easy to follow video guide you too can prepare a delicious fillet or two in no time under the guidance of our expert mongers!

Fishmonger Matt's top tips for filleting fish:

  1. Make sure you're working on a clean, dry and secure chopping board as well as placing a damp cloth underneath to prevent the board from moving.

  2. Use a sharp knife with flex in the blade approx 6 inches long.

  3. ALWAYS cut away from yourself, keep the sharp pointy thing away from your body!

  4. Maintain clean and confident strokes with the blade, the more cutting you do, the poorer the fillet.

  5. Put adequate pressure on the blade by maintaining a consistent downward pressure to maximise yield against bone, be cautious not to apply too much, however!

  6. If you're a complete novice, firstly welcome! Secondly, practice filleting on cheaper fish such as mackerel to avoid disappointing cuts on expensive fish.

  7. If in doubt; leave it to the professionals and order superb fillets of the freshest fish in Cornwall. We don't mind if you take the credit!

Get Fresh & Delicious Plaice here

Try these easy plaice recipes

How to fillet Lemon Sole

Text Guide

  1. Lay the fish on a board with the head pointing away from you. Cut around the head and down the centre or lateral line of the fish right through to the backbone.

  2. Working on the fillet nearest to you, insert the point of the knife under the flesh at the head end. Keeping the knife blade parallel to the bones, slice away the fillet using long sweeping strokes. Remove the other fillet in the same way but turn the fish around so that the tail is pointing away from you and cut from tail to head.

  3. Repeat the whole process on the other side to obtain the remaining two fillets, giving you four quarter-cut fillets. (Sometimes only one fillet is taken from each side and these are called cross-cut fillets.)

Buy Lemon Sole online from our website. You should also try these tasty lemon sole recipe.