I was out fishing on the Daily Double on 02/21/02 and was lucky enough to score one of the two legal halibut of the day, of course my first thought was Man this is going to make a great meal for my girlfriend and I.

I cut the fish myself and took all the care of a proud hunter about to partake in the glory of fresh caught fish. My approach to halibut cooking is simple yet delicious, I marinated the fish in lemon for about 15 minutes, dipped it in egg then into a batter that consisted of; Contadina Italian bread crumbs, flour,garlic salt,pepper, and a dash of crushed red pepper (for that added bite!). I proceeded to fry the fish in a few table spoons of Star Extra Virgin olive oil, and all was going well until one of the last tail portions.

My girlfriend, (whom I just recently coaxed into the world of fish consumption) was standing next to me while I was frying the fish, and to my horror up wiggles a worm out of the fish, It happened so fast I let out a quick yelp, which of course led my girlfriend to say "what's wrong?", well being the quick thinker that I am I told Her "Oh Nothing" and proceeded to remove the worm from the scene! The worm was about an inch long and brownish in color. So I was just wondering if any of you guys have had these worms "magically appear" and if you know if they are harmless, harmful, or just added protein.

Thanks for reading this far!!!!!!!!


Tight Lines..........

Did you let your girlfriend eat the fish?
:)

That is the exact reason that bottom dwellers are not common in sushi - as i understand it - most worms are considered nematoads or something along that line - common in lings, halibut, some rockfish etc. They can be extremely detrimental to ones heath if consumed, by cooking them you kill them and their eggs. I have read that halibut sushi is often frozen first to kill off these little buggers. Just look for them when you clean the fish, and remove them. If cooked they are just a little extra protein.

Yeah I made sure that my girlfriend got that special piece. I mean it took a loooooong time to even get her to look at fish, so I was not going to let it all go to waste in one fell swoop!!!!!!!!!!




Tight Lines..........

I guess if she didn't croak then it must be ok to eat fish with worms if you cook it long enough. The moral of this story is, if you are ever presented with food that you feel may be unsafe, get someone else to try it first!

It is true about bottom fish & the worms, they are also very common in salmon. Always cook these fish or at least freeze it for 24 hrs if you want sushi. If you relly want to push your girlfriend over the edge: Get a raw halibut fillet & sprinkle it with salt & watch the worms come out of the meat.

Home freezing may kill worms but it will not kill the bacteria in salmon and trout--you are still at risk using such fish raw as freezing only slows down the growth of the bacteria. Sushi and sashimi salmon is subzero frozen to something like minus 20 (don't quote me on temp). This kills the bacteria.

I collected these same worms for a science project in jr high. They live in the stomach lining of a lot of ocean fish. Most notable are halibut and sandbass, along with a number of rockfish. We put them in fermeldahyde and they lived in it for several days!! These things are tough little buggers.

They can be very bad if eaten alive because they will burrow into your stomach lining, however cooking will kill them. There is a great section in the back of Milton Love's book "Probably More Than you Wanted to Know About the Fishes of the Pacific Coast" that tells all about them. What I do when I fillet a halibut is hold up the meat to the sun and look for the worms. They will be curled up in there and can be picked out with the knife. Yummy.

Try bleeding and gutting the halibut immediately after it's caught. Apparently these little buggers live in the intestines of the halibut and travel to the flesh once the halibut dies.

Not an easy task when you land a big female, but by gutting the halibut right after it hits the deck, this will help keep those worms away from the girlfriend and she can focus on the other worm instead!

remington

I will eat just about anything, but I dont eat sashimi (raw fish), because of stuff like this. I know the "restaurant grade" sashimi for the most part is very safe, but still there is a risk of parasites (or bacteria)in the flesh, and if you remove the worms yourself, or just COOK it...there will be NO risk of parasites at all!

One thing someone taught me the other day was to soak my fish in kind of a "brine" like solution for a little while. Just fill up the sink and add some salt. The cold water will make the fillets firm, and the salt will drive out the worms. Once the worms are at the surface of the meat, just wash em off and your fine. Repeat step a few times to make sure all meat is dewormed. Once you see it, you will be glad you rinsed the fish off a little better

Joel

I also chill the meat in brine before final trimming of the fillets. When doing large batches of tuna or YT I use an ice chest full of saltwater & ice. I always did it to firm up the flesh & soak out the blood. Never noticed worms, but then I never really looked for them, either.

I'm glad I like my fish well done! :D

Fishslayer