How To Prepare A Cooked Lobster

How to prepare cooked lobster in six easy steps

1. Twist off the claws and the adjoining 'arm' segments. Crack them and remove the flesh, taking out the blade-like cartilage in each claw.
2. Snap off the eight legs as close to the body as you can. Break at the central joint and remove the flesh from the legs with a skewer.
3. Using a sharp knife, cut down the back of the lobster from head to tail and open out.
4. Remove and discard the thread-like intestinal canal and the white gravel sac from between the eyes.
5. Scoop out the greyish-green liver, known as tomalley, and any roe (coral) from a female lobster. These are both edible.
6. Lift out the flesh and remove the greyish-brown, feathery gills. Chop the flesh for cooking or serving and clean the shell if using.

How To Prepare A Squid

How to prepare a squid in 5 easy steps:

1. Rinse the squid in cold water. Pull back the body pouch and pull out the quill-like 'pen'. Pull the head and viscera away from the body.
2. Pull away the mucous membrane in the pouch under running water. Peel the skin off the pouch. Pull off and skin the fins.
3. Put the head and viscera on a work surface and cut off the tentacles above the eyes. They should come away connected by a rim of flesh.
4. Remove the ink sac if you wish to use it for cooking and discard the head and viscera.
5. A toothed beak lies in the flesh which connects the tentacles together. Squeeze the beak out of the flesh with your fingers and discard it.

The squid is now ready for you to cook; the body pouch, the tentacles, the fins and the ink sac.

How To Clean, Split and Bone Round Fish

How to clean, split and bone round fish in six easy steps:

1. Wash the fish and scrape off the scales with the back of a knife, working from tail to head.
2. Cut off the head just behind the gills with a sharp knife. Cut off the fins and tail with scissors.
3. Slit open the underside of the fish to the vent and scrape out the innards. Wash in cold running water and pat dry with a paper towel. Rub the flesh with a little salt to make it less slippery and easier to handle.
4. Open the fish out and press down on a working surface, skin side uppermost. Press hard along the backbone to flatten the fish.
5. Turn the fish over and lift the bone away with the flat of a knife.
6. Wash in cold running water and pat dry with a paper towel.

How To Fillet A Flat Fish

How to fillet a flat fish in six easy steps:

1. Lay the scaled, cleaned and gutted fish on a working surface, white side uppermost, with the tail towards you. Using a sharp flexible knife cut between the fins and the body, down the centre line of the body and under the head.
2. Working from head to tail and from the centre outwards, cut away the left hand fillet, keeping the blade of the knife flat against the bone.
3. Turn the fish so that the head is towards you and remove the second fillet in the same way.
4. Turn the fish over so that the black skin is uppermost and treat as for the white side.
5. To remove the black skin, rub the fish with a little salt and, gripping the tail end of the fillet, saw gently along the skin to remove the flesh.
6. Wash the fillets in cold running water and pat dry with a paper towel.