How to dry fish at home

Dried or dried fish is a special delicacy to any table. Without such a fish can not do any friendly get-togethers with beer and favorite snacks. Properly salted and dried fish has a rich taste and delicate appetizing aroma. But how is dried fish different from dried? Dried fish is pre-salted carcasses, which are subsequently dried. They are ready to eat and can be eaten without additional processing. But the dried-fresh fish - it's just dried meat, which is harvested for the winter. Before use, it must be fried or cooked. Such meat is often dried in the northern regions in order to preserve the healthy product for the winter period.

Often people mean by drying the drying of fish. Dried fish is usually cooked on an industrial scale. Dried fish is called the same process, but at home.Today you will learn how to properly make dried fish to make it tasty, safe and healthy.

What fish to choose

It is best to dry fish in the fall and spring. At this time, the fish is the most fat and tasty. At home, you can salt any fish, but the best for this is suitable perch, roach, rudd, bream, pike perch, roach. As a rule, after a good fishing, the largest fish go for fish soup and frying, and those that are smaller for salting.

It is best to dry a fresh fish caught not more than 10 hours ago. In this case, salting will be of high quality and safe. If you salt the fish yesterday, it can turn out with a “smack”. Large and small fish should be salted in different dishes, since the time of their glazing is not the same.

How to dry fish

The technique of drying and drying fish differs only in the degree of drying of meat. That is, in fact, dried fish is not a fully dried carcass. To make fish meat tasty, salted and fragrant, you need to go through all the stages of its processing.

Training
Fresh fish should be dipped in a bath with a little water. Gently wash the mud and mud from the scales.It is very important to wash the fish with your hands in order to remove mucus from its surface. The less mucus remains on the fish, the tastier and more appetizing it will turn out.

Then the fish should be gutted. Some fishermen and housewives salt the fish completely, but if the carcass is medium-sized, it is better to remove all unnecessary. Dried fish with offal acquires a slight bitterness, which it gives to bile. Only small fish are dried with giblets.

In advance, you need to choose the dishes for salting. This may be a plastic bucket, enamelware, tin pelvis. Be prepared for the fact that after salting the tank will smell like fish for a long time.

Pickling

Capacity with fish covered with gauze and left in a cool place. You can put a bucket with a salted fish on the balcony (in the cold time of the day), in the cellar or basement. It is not recommended to put fish in the refrigerator even with a tightly closed lid - all products will smell of fish. In this form, the fish should stand for several days.When the fish gives the juice, which is called a brine, it will need to be pressed down with a yoke so that all the fish are completely covered with brine. The oppression also does not allow air to gather in the belly of the fish. As an oppression, you can use a large stone, a weight or a container of water. Under the yoke of the fish should be another 2-3 days.

After the specified time the fish must be checked. A well-salted carcass has a sunken back and rather solid sides. Take the fish's head and pull its tail. If the spine makes a distinctive sound, the fish is ready. If not, leave the carcass to wake up for another day.

Soaking
The next stage - soaking fish. This is done in order to wash off excess salt from the fish. Pour the contents of the bucket into a bath filled with water. Immediately need to sort the fish. Those that have settled on the bottom are well salted, they are suitable for long-term storage. And those that surfaced are better to be consumed first - they will not last for long.

Fish should be kept in water for 4-5 hours. After that, it is carefully washed by hand - both on the outside and on the inside. If salt and mucus are not washed off, you can rub them with a soft sponge, but be careful not to damage the fish scales. Without it, it can not be stored for a long time.

Drying
When all fish have been washed, they need to be dried. To dry, you need to prepare large rings of wire, on which the fish is worn sideways, that is, through the eye holes. In this form, the fish is dried much better.

It is very important to protect the fish from bees, flies, mosquitoes and other insects. Harmful bugs can leave contagion on the carcass, which will lead to rotting of the product, it can not be stored for a long time. Besides, it is much more pleasant to eat a clean fish and to be sure that a swarm of flies did not sit on it. You can cover the fish hung with drying gauze or make a gauze frame. Better yet, hang the fish to dry in the evening when there are no flies anymore. By morning, the fish will dry up, and the flies will not be afraid of it.

Dry fish need about 5-7 days. It is very important not to overdry the carcasses, otherwise they will turn out not dried, but dried. Dry the fish in a well-ventilated place, away from sunlight. To check the fish for readiness, you just need to try it. If you smell the smell of raw fish - it requires additional drying. Good dried fish is not completely dry, but a little soft at the back.

When the fish is ready, it should be removed from the wire, put into canvas or paper bags and stored in a cool place.Dried fish in this way will be usable for six months.

Useful tips

Here are some more useful tips that will help you when drying and salting the fish:

1. When soaking fish after salting, the water needs to be changed several times to fresh.
2. Some fishermen dry fish, hanging it not by the head, but by the tail. This should not be done, otherwise the fat will flow, and the fish will turn out dry and tasteless.
3. If you do not have time for a long drying of fish, you can use an electric dryer. Conditions with a certain temperature and a special degree of ventilation can bring the fish to readiness for 6-8 hours!
4. In cold regions, the fish is stored as follows. After salting it is not dried, and frozen. After lying in the cold for about a month, the fish becomes very tasty and can be stored for quite some time.
5. If you are afraid that the flies will sit on the fish, the carcass can be smeared with vinegar.
6. In order for the fish to dry well from the inside, toothpicks need to be inserted into the walls of its abdomen.
7. In the summer, the fish are not dried - the heat may cause the fish to rot and not dry.In addition, dried in hot weather, the fish turns bitter.
8. In ancient times, fish was salted in wooden barrels. From this she received a special woody fragrance, which to this day is considered a special delight. Some manufacturers of dried fish still have a similar production procedure.
9. The fish should not be dried in the sun. Otherwise, all the fat is melted, the fish will turn out dry and lean.
10. Dried fish is popular in some areas. After washing, it is left to dry in the oven, not in the air. In this case, the preheated oven must be turned off, the fish will languish, as it were. The fish is pre-placed in clay pots. The fish prepared in this way is soft and well salted.
11. If stored improperly in bags with dried fish, a sour or musty smell, mold, or mucus may appear. Such fish cannot be eaten.
12. Small fish, such as smelt or small perch, wilt easier as simple. You need to soak the washed fish in salt water for 20 minutes, and then hang to dry.

These subtleties and nuances will help you dry the fish so that it can be stored for a long time, as well as preserve their taste and benefits.

It is difficult to find a more suitable snack for beer than dried or dried fish. If you often go fishing - do not give extra catch to your neighbors. Fish can be easily stored if properly dried. And then you can enjoy the fragrant taste of salted fish all year round.

Video: how to dry and salt fish