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Culinary Arts & Cooking vocabulary · Knife Skills & Cuts

Fillet

Meaning in culinary arts & cooking, with examples

/ˈfɪlɪt/nounCommon term

In culinary arts & cooking, fillet means: A boneless piece of fish or meat, such as a fish fillet or beef fillet. As a verb, to fillet means to remove the bones and cut out these pieces.

In Turkish: fileto, bonfile

How it is used

Used in fish and butchery work. Cooks fillet whole fish with a flexible filleting knife, and menus list sea bass fillet or beef fillet. Fillet steak is a tender cut from the beef tenderloin.

Example sentences

  1. Can you fillet these ten sea bream before lunch?

  2. Each portion is one salmon fillet of about 160 grams.

Common collocations

  • fish fillet
  • fillet a fish
  • filleting knife
  • beef fillet
  • skinless fillet
  • chef's knifeA large all-purpose kitchen knife with a broad, slightly curved blade, usually 20 to 25 cm long, used for most chopping, slicing and dicing.
  • portionThe amount of a food served to one person. As a verb, to portion means to divide food into equal amounts for serving.
  • yieldThe amount or number of portions a recipe produces; also the usable weight of an ingredient left after trimming, boning or peeling.
  • searTo brown the surface of meat or fish quickly in a very hot pan or on a grill, creating a dark, tasty crust.

More terms: Knife Skills & Cuts

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