Eating Raw Halibut?

While cooking a halibut I caught the other day I snacked on a few scraps from trimming the fillets and they were very good. I wonder if its acceptable to do this or if any of you guys do it? My butt was from Tomales and it has been in the freezer for two days. Just wondering if its worth it or not to be eating it in larger portions.

Yup. Hirame if you are ordering it at a sushi restaurant. Totally worth doing more of it.

Halibut sashimi is delicious. Much tastier than eating it cooked in my opinion. Some people accept the small risk of parasites and eat it fresh. I have been following the guideline of freezing it at 0°F (home freezer) for seven days to kill parasites. Freezing won't kill bacteria and viruses, so you need to maintain good hygiene while filleting. I've been meaning to try speeding up the freezing process by dropping the packaged fillets in a 0°F brine solution-- after normal home freezing the texture can be a little soggy (but still delicious).

I love me some hirame, but I don't consider local calibuts as a small risk when fresh.  Most I've caught have to many parasites.  Take. Look at a section of the belly and you'll see what i mean.  Follow the freezing guidelines!

-Allen

Our old local Japanese grocer set me straight on this one. When I told him I was eating my fresh salmon raw he told me it was dangerous and that sushi grade fish is always flash frozen to really low temps.

After the lecture he gave me I researched it, and I think somebody here posted links to articles on the subject. I've now met two people who have had the parasites and it's not something you take a few pills for, can end up needing surgical removal e.g. from your esophagus.

Halibut is one of the most parasite infested fish in the local ocean, I used to pick the curly worms and pile them on the counter.

Sushi grade fish comes from specific vendors, not all restaurants buy from them. My wife is Chinese, we have a Japanese only rule for sushi restaurants, no Chinese, no Korean etc.

I've now met two people who have had the parasites and it's not something you take a few pills for, can end up needing surgical removal e.g. from your esophagus.

Yikes! Any details on what species of fish they were eating and what kind of parasites they got?

What part of the fillet works best for sashimi? I know that with salmon, the belly is the best, but anyone who has held a halibut belly up to a light will probably think twice about eating it raw.

Maybe the clean white meat from the upper part of the fillet or near the tail?

I love me some hirame, but I don't consider local calibuts as a small risk when fresh.  Most I've caught have to many parasites.  Take. Look at a section of the belly and you'll see what i mean.  Follow the freezing guidelines!

-Allen

This. 

Ick. I love sashimi but you won't catch me eating it before it's been frozen at 0 for a full 7 days. Unless it's a pelagic like yellowtail.

A couple weeks ago my room mate shot his first ling. "Cooked" it and started chowing down. After a few bites he looked at his fork and saw a big worm squirming around. Whoops... raw in the middle. After forcing himself to throw up he chucked the rest.

It was a good learning experience. You can't get worms from them. However if you ingest a worm it will die, and your bodies response to it can cause you a possibly fatal bowel obstruction.

I didn't get details, from the conversation with the first guy I gathered he was hospitalized for a fairly long time, surgery etc. When he said he still eats his fresh fish raw I was thinking maybe they should do a CT scan of your head to see if the worms made it to your brain.

The articles I read before were medical but the one below is a good starting point

https://www.wildlife.ca.gov/Conservation/Marine/Parasites

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Description: It is easy to exaggerate the hazards, both real and imagined, of larval roundworms in the flesh of seafood. There is no reason why those who enjoy raw fish dishes, such as sashimi and seviche, cannot safely eat it if they take a few simple precautions.

Larval roundworms, or nematodes, are found in many species of marine fish. While cleaning the catch, the angler may find them coiled on the surface of the intestine, on the liver, in the body cavity, and embedded in the flesh. The larval roundworms are between 1/2 and 3/4 inches in length. When coiled they sometimes resemble a ball of yarn or a watch spring. These worms are known as "anisakids". Some live as adults in such marine mammals as seals, porpoises, whales and dolphins. The eggs enter the seawater with the feces of these mammals. They are eaten by small crustaceans such as copepods, which in turn are eaten by a fish or a squid. If this infected host is consumed by the proper marine mammal, the larvae will mature into adults. Herein lies the problem. Humans are also mammals. When we eat seafood, such as fish and squid, which contain live, infective larvae, the worms can become active in their new hosts and try to burrow into the stomach lining. This can cause lesions or growths on the stomach walls. This disease is called "anisakiasis", after the worms, and is also known as "cod-worm" of "herring-worm" disease. Some fish have lots of worms because the larvae are transferred when one fish eats another.

I don't know who's right about which parasites are bad for humans but it's probably safe to say the inventors of sushi know what they're talking about. When the guy who ran our little local Japanese market for decades told me it was dangerous to eat raw fresh fish I quit doing it.

A little side note, I work in a children's hospital and we've had a couple of cases where parasites normally found in gi tract seemed just as happy to migrate to other parts of the body, things can get pretty gruesome.

I've had many fish from the market, halibut included, that was so fresh that I was interested in eating raw, but my fishmongers at Japanese-owned Berkeley Bowl Seafood warned me against it.  Later, as I was preparing the fish for grilling at home, sure enough, I saw LIVE round worms wriggling from my just cut blocks.  Then I took a couple of the very thinnest slices I could cut from the blocks and held those up to the light...and oh boy, the parasites I could see!

Similarly, with salmon, the muscle slices are revealing, as is an inspection of the gills.  Yes, it is possible to inspect and render our own catch, but I wouldn't consider it without proper training by a knowledgable professional or marine biologist.

I don't know who's right about which parasites are bad for humans but it's probably safe to say the inventors of sushi know what they're talking about. When the guy who ran our little local Japanese market for decades told me it was dangerous to eat raw fresh fish I quit doing it.

A little side note, I work in a children's hospital and we've had a couple of cases where parasites normally found in gi tract seemed just as happy to migrate to other parts of the body, things can get pretty gruesome.

Not sure if that was a reply to me or not, but that's what I was talking about. The worms will TRY and burrow in and live in you, but they end up dying pretty quick. Then your body will try to heal or correct the problem which will lead to a bowel obstruction, requiring surgery or possibly being fatal.

As for the migration, pork tapeworms (trichinosis) are the bad ones that migrate into the brain and other tissue.

I believe the official USDA requirement is -4 F for 7 days which is easily achievable in a home freezer. The problem is that if you don't flash freeze it, the texture will deteriorate significantly. People on here have discussed using a bucket of heavily salted water to (almost) flash freeze. I'm experimenting with that now with some halibut, which has been in the freezer for 7 days, so we'll give it a try any day now. I'll let you know how it goes...

The results are in and my homemade halibut sushi is ... amazing!

Following polepole's instructions, I sliced it into thin strips and put it on paper towels in the fridge for a couple of days (changing paper towels each day). Then put the fish into plastic bags with air removed and plunged those into a bucket of heavily salted water that was at -6 F. Once it was frozen solid, I put it in the freezer at -4 for (at least) 7 days.

The results are in and my homemade halibut sushi is ... amazing!

Following polepole's instructions, I sliced it into thin strips and put it on paper towels in the fridge for a couple of days (changing paper towels each day). Then put the fish into plastic bags with air removed and plunged those into a bucket of heavily salted water that was at -6 F. Once it was frozen solid, I put it in the freezer at -4 for (at least) 7 days.

Glad to be a service.  Did you slice into thin strips that were already eating size, or into strips that just needed to be cut one last time into eating size?  I'd do the later at most, lest the eating size strips dry out too much and the texture changes too much.  Too much surface area is not your friend here.  The other thing to keep in mind is to NOT rinse in fresh water, as it will affect the texture.  Be careful when filleting to not get the filets dirty and just wipe down with a paper towel.

-Allen