CLEANING AND PREPARING THE SHARK TO EAT

If you have never cooked those little sharks that one catches in the bays and waves, you are missing out on a great treat. 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 the Main to Florida.

Note that the dogfish does not have those sharp, pointy teeth that cut and tear at its prey. They crush and grind in place. 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 rather 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 the stingray and skate. They say 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. The urea-like compounds in shark blood will immediately begin to break down into ammonia.

This is the key to cleaning the shark and avoiding the buildup of unpleasant odors and flavors:

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

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

A word of caution. The dogfish shark, as noted above, does 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. Have a relatively clean surface to work on the shark’s body after the head has been removed and the shark has bled to death. 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 the rest of the shark and place it on your clean work area.

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

C. Use the fillet knife to remove the head and allow the body to bleed out for a couple of minutes. Run fillet knife across underside of shark; from where the head was removed to where the inner cavity ends.

Remove the entrails.

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

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

F. Pass 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 at the 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 a left and a right halve.

G. Shark skin is hard to remove, but once you get started and have a decent grip, the flesh can be ripped off. Take your needle nose pliers and squeeze them into one corner of the skin at the top, head on one side. Pinch off a good chunk of the skin and then, holding the tweezers tight, twist them once or twice so that the skin wraps around the end of the tweezers. Hold tight and pull a few times so that the skin begins to peel away from the meat. Poke a hole in the shark with your other hand (a friend is helpful here) and pull hard to continue tearing away the skin until the entire skin side has been removed. Once you’ve ripped off a pretty good chunk, you can remove the skin tongs and use them to grip 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 have not yet removed. 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, just pinch the skin again and roll it again until you have ripped it off more. Continue the process until all the skin is removed.

2. Once you have completed the steps in #1, you will see a dark or red stripe running along both sides of the meat. Use the fillet knife to cut just below the dark surface to remove it. Re-clip below if the dark 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 finished product on ice to keep cold until ready to cook. You can cut small sharks into 3-, 4-, or larger-inch pieces to place 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 ammonia. If so, please do not buy it or order another part.

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

ENJOY!!!

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