- a native Russian dish. In Russia, it is customary to dry both sea and river fish, and a variety of species are used for this. The process involves pre-salting the fish, followed by soaking and drying it under natural or artificial conditions. As a result of dehydration and further ripening, it acquires a special taste and smell, as well as a certain consistency due to compaction of the pulp. Its dried meat takes on an amber hue and becomes translucent.
Typically, small species of fish that are not valuable in industrial fishing are used for drying.
Despite its apparent simplicity, this is not an easy task, and it takes a lot of time. A novice fisherman, in order not to spoil his catch, needs to pay attention to many nuances. The best quality is obtained from fish that was salted on the day of catch.
One of the popular types of fish used for drying and drying is perch.
How to dry river perch
River perch turns out to be somewhat dry, with a specific taste. As experienced fishermen say, it is fattier and tastier before spawning, that is, caught in winter or early spring. In the warm season, it is better to dry perch in the spring, before the heat sets in, or closer to autumn, when there are no flies. In the summer heat, the salting and soaking time will be long, and much more salt will be needed. There is a great risk that rotting will begin under the scales quickly seized by salt.
Preparation
For drying, it is advisable to take perches of approximately the same weight, since the salting period is different for small and large specimens. Ideally, these should be fish weighing 200-300 grams. In the warm season, 300 grams of coarse salt per kilogram of fish is needed; in winter it will be needed 2-3 times less.
The material of the dishes in which salting will take place should not oxidize. This can be enameled, glass or plastic containers (bucket, basin, pan), as well as boxes and baskets
In the summer and spring-autumn period, the fish must be gutted, otherwise, if you leave the guts, you can ruin the entire salting. The gills are also removed, but the scales must be left behind. The perches are washed to remove mucus in cold water and then gutted. Cut fish is not washed. To make the fish tastier, the belly can be left uncut, and the entrails removed through a cut near the ridge. Some fishermen remove dirt with a rag, believing that washing spoils the taste. In winter, do not gut small fish, as this will make them fatter.
Pickling
Salting can be done dry or wet. Dry is more suitable for larger specimens. A box or basket is used as a container, with a piece of fabric placed at the bottom. The inside of the carcasses is rubbed with salt, then they are placed tightly in a box with their bellies up, tails to the head. Sprinkle salt on top, place plywood or something flat and press down with pressure, for example, a stone, to remove air from bubbles and compact the meat. The released liquid will flow through the cracks in the box or basket. The salting time lasts from 5 to 10 days. If you dry salt a small fish, you don’t have to remove the insides: they place it in a box on a rag, sprinkle it generously with salt, cover it with the other end of the rag and put pressure on top.
For salting, you need coarse, non-iodized salt and suitable containers. If the fish are different sizes, the larger ones are placed on the bottom of the dish, the small ones - on top.
Most often, perch is salted using the wet method. To do this, pour salt into the bottom of the container - approximately 3 mm. The fish are placed in rows quite tightly so that each fish rests its belly against the back of the other, and its head against the tail. Sprinkle all rows with salt, generously on the top row so that the perches are completely covered. You can optionally place bay leaves and spices between the rows. Cover it in a circle and put pressure so that it crushes the fish. Place in a cool place (refrigerator or cellar) so that the meat, which has not reached the salt, does not spoil. After salting, a brine begins to form, and in about two days it will cover all the fish. The resulting brine should be transparent. If it is cloudy and reddish, the fish has begun to spoil. Salting will take approximately 3 to 7 days, depending on the size of the fish. The finished perch has hardened meat; if you pull the tail or head, you should hear a crunch, as if the back is being pulled towards the ridge. If these signs are not present, you need to keep the fish in brine for another day.
Flushing
After salting, soaking in cold water is necessary. Dried perch should not be too salty, with amber-colored meat. The duration of rinsing depends on the duration of salting. There is a rule: for every day of salting, there is an hour of soaking. The perches are placed in a container with a large amount of cold water and washed by hand, the scales should not fly off. Then leave for several hours. It is important not to keep the fish in the water too long, otherwise its outer layers will become soggy. You can taste the perch for its salinity level.
Some recommend rinsing the perch under cold running water for 10 minutes to remove any mucus, remaining salt and spices. For lovers of lightly salted fish, the washing time can be slightly increased.
Drying
When the washing is completed, the water is allowed to drain, and the perches are placed in a well-ventilated place, but without sun, in a suspended form. Ideal drying conditions are outside at a temperature of 18-20⁰C.
It is recommended to pass the line through the eye or lower lip to retain the internal fat in the fish and thus make it more tasty.
Instead of fishing line, you can use homemade hooks made from steel wire, cut and bent in the shape of the letter Z, or regular paper clips. To help the fish dry faster, you can insert toothpicks into the bellies.
Drying time depends on the size of the carcasses, the weather and who prefers what kind of fish - very dry or medium dried
Readiness is checked after about six days. If the fish is still raw, leave it to dry. On average, the drying process takes 5-8 days, and it is already ready to eat, but it takes three to four weeks to reach full maturity.
To speed up the process, you can hang the perches above the gas stove, but lower than 80 cm from its surface. In this case, the fish will dry out in three days. You can dry perch in a well-ventilated attic or balcony, as well as in a cellar. In the latter case, it will have to be dried in a warmer place.
Store dried perch, wrapped in paper, in the refrigerator. If the fish is cooked correctly, it will be stored for a long time - up to 6-10 months.
Recipe for curing sea bass
To dry sea bass, you need to take carcasses weighing from 0.5 to 1 kg, preferably the same size.
When choosing fish, be sure to pay attention to the following points:
- The eyes should be round, transparent, not sunken.
- The tail and fins must not be broken.
For 5 kg of fresh frozen fish you will need a kilogram of coarse non-iodized salt.
To begin, the perch needs to be defrosted naturally at a temperature no higher than 18⁰ C. If the carcasses break off well from each other, you can start salting.
Cut off the fish's head, humerus and caudal fin, and remove the entrails. Gently rinse the gutted carcasses and let the water drain.
To pickle, take an enamel basin or bucket and rinse it with cold water. Roll each carcass in salt and place it in rows crosswise tightly to each other, sprinkling each row with salt. Pour the remaining salt onto the last row, cover with a wooden circle, plywood or flat plate, and press with a weight of about 3 kg. This could be a three-liter jar of water.
The fish can be left at room temperature, but it is better to place it in a cool place for 3-6 days. After the expiration date, stir the carcasses and pour them into a bath of cold water, where they keep for 4 hours. Then rinse each fish under cold running water.
They pierce the fish in the tail section with an awl and hang it on hooks for two to three hours to drain the water. After this, they are taken out into a draft, it is advisable that the temperature does not exceed 25⁰C. If there are significant differences in daytime and nighttime temperatures outside, the perch should be brought indoors at night. It takes about 3-7 days to dry the fish, depending on what condition you would like to achieve.
If the finished sea bass will be stored for a long time, you need to place it in a box and turn it over periodically - about once a week
In winter, it is impossible to achieve the same ripening of fish as in summer, since only in the fresh air with low humidity is it possible to obtain a high-quality product. In winter, indoors, the process goes faster due to heat, and the fish does not have time to acquire an amber color and transparency.
People who care about their health and the health of their family must include fish dishes in their weekly diet. There are many ways to prepare fish. These include fish soups, fried fish, and baked fish with various sauces, but perhaps the most delicious fish is a salted or smoked carcass.
Sea bass is a valuable, nutritious fish that can be prepared in all of the above ways. Salting and smoking are also suitable for processing this fish.
How to pickle sea bass?
For every kilogram of fish you will need 100 grams of salt, that is, 10% of its weight. The fish needs to be cleaned of scales with a knife and a cut is made on the abdomen. Remove all the entrails from the perch. Before salting, it is also necessary to remove the gills and cut off the large dorsal fin. Before you start salting, rinse the sea bass and dry it with a clean, dry towel or thick cloth.
Pour some salt into the bottom of an enamel pan. Place the fish on the salt, pressing them tightly together. Place the fish layer by layer, sprinkle each layer generously with salt. The top row should be completely covered with salt. Now you need to put pressure on the fish. It is best to choose a cutting board that matches the size of the pan and place something heavy on it, for example, a three-liter jar filled with water.
The fish is cooked in a period of two to five days; the exact cooking time depends on the size of the fish. After this time it will be well salted. All that remains is to hang it out to dry. Important note: Before hanging the sea bass out to dry, soak it in water for about three hours.
How to salt sea bass before smoking?
It is worth noting that salted sea bass is not as popular as smoked sea bass. Before smoking, the fish also needs to be pre-salted, but unlike the first method, here the fish is not cleaned of scales, but only gutted and thoroughly wiped so that there are no blood clots left in the abdomen, because they can spoil the smell and taste of the finished fish.
Salt should be taken in an amount of 10% of the weight of the fish. Rub each carcass with salt inside and out and place under pressure in a cool place. Before smoking sea bass, it is enough to salt it for 15 hours, then hang the fish to dry for about 9 hours. It is important that the fish is well dried, otherwise it may become moldy when cooked. When the fish is dry, it is ready for smoking.
Smoked and salted sea bass will become an original appetizer on your table.
Fish has many beneficial properties that are so necessary for normal human development. It contains a large amount of easily digestible protein, fats, including fish oil, many unsaturated fatty acids and, of course, phosphorus, which is necessary to strengthen skeletal bones. Nowadays, it is very important that fish is very affordable for anyone. Every person has tried dried fish at least once in their life. And the further use of it in the human diet depends on the first impression it makes on him. I'm an amateur dried perch, which differs from other river fish in its fattier and more tasty meat.
My husband has been interested in fishing for a long time. And it doesn’t matter to him whether it’s summer or winter; armed with the necessary gear, he goes to the pond. As a fisherman’s wife, I’m already thinking about what to do with the trophy I brought today. Oddly enough, my angler only eats dried or dried fish. Dry perch he won't let me near. He does everything himself. On my last fishing trip (winter), my husband caught a small amount of perch, which we decided to dry.
Perch is the most common fish in our waters. Perch meat is very tasty, but many people prefer not to bother with this prickly fish. In addition, it is quite difficult to clean perch due to the small scales that are tightly packed together. In order not to bother with it, my husband decided to dry it.
So, before how to dry perch, it needs to be calibrated. That is, from the entire catch we select the fish we need in size, mostly large ones, since they have more meat and are fattier. If it contains more than a kilogram, it must be gutted to remove the insides and to better salt the entire carcass. Our fish is medium sized, so we didn't gut it. Moreover, we also do not remove the scales.
Next, wash the fish and prepare it for salting. Salting is the main operation when drying fish. The salt should draw out excess moisture from the perch. For salting, use enamel dishes. Place the prepared fish in a pan in layers: salt - fish. My husband also adds seasonings; you can use bay leaves. We place the perches as close to each other as possible; to do this, they are laid out in a certain order - the tummy of one fish to the back of another, the head of one to the tail of another. The top layer is salt. Cover the fish with a flat plate or a lid (smaller in diameter than the pan) and place a press on it. This can be a bucket of water or a three-kilogram weight. Place the workpiece in a cool, dark place. After a few hours, a brine will form in the pan. Depending on the size and type of fish, the salting time ranges from 1 to 7 days. In our case, the perch was salted in brine under pressure for two days.
Salted fish must be thoroughly rinsed under running cold water to remove excess salt, mucus and spices. We place the prepared perches on a wire or thread; the puncture should be made on the tail so that the remaining salt goes into the head. Let the excess salt water drain.
You can hang fish to dry in any well-ventilated place - in a fishing line, if possible, or on the balcony. Dry perch on the balcony only if the weather outside is warm and dry. Since we decided in winter, it is dried not in the sun, as expected, but at room temperature. To speed up the drying time, the perches can be hung above the gas stove, but not too low. Drying fish depends on several parameters - the type, size of the fish, air temperature, and, depending on them, lasts from two to eight days. We dried perches a couple of days. You can store fish in the refrigerator in a plastic bag. So, after some simple operations, we enjoy home-cooked dried perch in the winter.
How to dry perch is a popular question that fishing enthusiasts have repeatedly asked. In addition to being fried and baked, perch makes an excellent beer snack. Its main advantage is that it is prepared from fresh product caught the day before. By performing all the processes correctly, you will get a delicious battering ram.
Necessary ingredients for drying perch
In the summer, there are no problems with a place to dry the ram (balcony), which cannot be said about the cold season. The problem is solved by constructing a homemade dryer over a stove or in a warm, ventilated room. Knowing where and how to dry perches in winter, you should familiarize yourself with the required ingredients:
- 1.5 kilograms of perches;
- 300 grams of salt;
- 3 tablespoons sugar.
Perch drying process
The process of preparing dried fish involves 4 main stages:
- PREPARATION. The fish is washed with running water. The big one is cleaned of entrails, the small one is not cleaned.
- SALKING. Lasts 2–4 days (the size of the catch is taken into account). Salt and sugar are mixed. The resulting mixture is generously sprinkled on the first layer of the catch, placed in a prepared deep container. Place the second one on top, sprinkle with salt and sugar. The entire prepared volume of river fish is salted. The catch is covered with a plate with a diameter smaller than that of the main container. A weight (a container of water) is placed on the plate. If the back of the salted perch is elastic when pressed, it’s time to move on to soaking.
- SOAKING. The duration is similar to the previous stage. The salted product is filled with water. During soaking, the liquid is changed several times. There is a third stage to get rid of excess salt. Knowing the basics of proper catch preparation and how to properly dry perch, your supply of excellent snacks will be replenished.
- DRYING. How to dry perch, where it is best to do it, was discussed above. Having strung the fish on a wire, you should know how long to dry the perch. The recommended time is a week. You can try the snack earlier. Instead of a dried delicacy, you will get a dried one.
Having caught a rich catch of river fish, you don’t need to worry about the lack of ideas for preparing it. If fried or steamed dishes are no longer impressive, you should try the given recipe. Knowing how to dry perch at home, you will have a tasty ram with a long shelf life in your house.
