What’s the trick to slicing fish on the bias? I sliced up my gravlax today, and it wasn’t as easy as slicing meat on the bias. I used a santoku knife (because it’s thinner than my chef’s knives) with hollows ground into the blade. The flesh still adhered to it though.
Is it even necessary to slice fish on the bias? From my understanding, we do it with steak because it has tougher meat, and cutting on the bias makes the muscle fibers shorter and more tender.
Fish is fairly tender as is, right?
I’ve never seen gravlax that wasn’t. I assume other raw fish would be similarly sliced.
You can cut gravlax straight down too, though the slices won’t be as thin, or as large. I like to slice up gravlax with a fairly thin and flexible blade with a serrated edge, and I find it easier to cut it with the skin left.
Fast forward this video to the 5 minute mark: http://video.ocregister.com/m/23789613/gravlax-swedish-salmon-appetizer-with-marcus-samuelsson.htm
A long, narrow, slicing knife works best - a flexible boning knife can work well.
The santoku is too wide - this allows the flesh to stick to the blade even with the dimpling.
That’s how I was doing it. Only I didn’t have such a big piece to work with.
I’ll have to get a more flexible knife. Except perhaps for the carving knife, the santoku is the least rigid knife I have.