Drying fish in the winter in the cold. How to dry fish

The question of how to store fish for future use is relevant primarily for those families whose members are fond of fishing. The catch remains fresh for a very short time, and you need to be able to save it.

The drying process is the drying of pre-salted fish

One of the most effective ways preparation of fish for long-term storage dried is considered. The method itself is quite simple: fresh product salted and then dried in the open air. Nevertheless, the process can take place with so many variations that in order to understand all its subtleties, it is worth not only familiarizing yourself with the special literature, but also watching several relevant videos.

Today we decided to give readers a general idea of how to properly dry fish at home.

How to cook dried fish

Approach the drying process with all responsibility. If you ignore some advice, you can get a low-quality product, the use of which will lead to poisoning or other negative consequences. For drying, use only fresh catch, fatty fish. Carcasses should not smell of sea or river water, mud. Fresh meat tends to be firm to the touch. There are no brown spots on its surface, which indicate the beginning of the decomposition process.

It is advisable to use glassware with enamel. Pottery, ceramic, porcelain, glass, wooden, titanium containers are suitable. Choose the right salt. Try not to buy an iodized product. As a rule, it spoils the appearance, taste qualities delicacy. Use coarse salt. It is worth determining the required amount of the product by placing a raw egg in the liquid - it should float on the surface of the water. If it doesn't, then it may be worth adding more salt or stirring the liquid thoroughly.

How to salt fish for drying

Processing is carried out dry or wet. In the first case, the carcasses are rubbed with finely ground salt. It is worth considering in detail how to salt fish for drying in a wet way. The carcasses are strung on a string, placed in brine. Salt, lavrushka, spices are distributed between the layers of fish. The delicacy is cooked for about 2-6 days. The time indicated depends on the size of the fish. If you use too deep dishes, then stir the composition periodically. At the same time, try to lower the upper layers, and raise the lower ones.

How to dry properly

It takes about 1-2 hours to soak the fish after salting for drying. Further, the carcasses are hung out on the street. Remember to hang the fish upside down. Thanks to this position, excess moisture is released through the mouth - the carcasses will dry much faster and more evenly. To hang the fish, you must first pierce it near the tails. To do this, use special stainless steel hooks. After hanging, you need to wait 4-10 days.

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How to dry fish in winter

Some people may not know how to dry fish at home during the winter. Keep in mind that jerky fish works well when there is a constant supply of fresh air. Try to place the carcasses on a closed heated balcony, loggia, in the kitchen near the stove, heating radiator. Place a fan near the meat to help the meat weathered faster. It is worth noting that winter has one major advantage for drying - the absence of flies.

How to dry fish in the oven

If you are interested in how to dry carcasses or how to cook fillets in the oven, then you should know that for effective processing, toothpicks and matches should be inserted into the meat. Set the temperature in the oven to 40 degrees, turn on the convection fan. Spread the salted carcasses on a baking sheet, on a sheet of parchment or foil, and put in the oven. Leave the cabinet door ajar. Turn on the oven, dry the meat for 5-7 hours.

How to dry fish at home

Friends, first of all, after you have caught perches or other fish for drying, you must not only determine the place where all this action will unfold, but also prepare in advance what will help. Otherwise, you can get not only a low-quality product, but also problems from your wife (since the unpleasant smell will spread at a catastrophic rate).

That is why we have prepared this article, in which we will tell about each separate stage... From preparing the "tools" and salting, to checking the readiness of the fish.

Carp

Time: 3 weeks.
Calorie content (100 g): 184 kcal.
Purpose: appetizer.
Cuisine: Russian.
Difficulty: easy.

Carp is known for its excellent taste. It is fried, boiled, baked in the oven, stuffed. Before preparing dried carp, keep in mind that it is advisable to use fatty carcasses for salting. Some housewives prefer not to clean the insides, but it is better to get rid of them. Also, be sure to remove the gills. Large specimens should be cut along the ridge, thanks to which the meat will be salted faster.

Ingredients:

carp (take small fish) - 1 kg;
vegetable oil - 50 g;
salt - 200 g.

Cooking method:

Remove scales, heads, tails, entrails.
Fill the carcasses with a solution of salt with the addition of oil, leave for 10 days.
Hang the meat in a ventilated place, let it dry for 2 weeks.

What recipes do you know?

Vobla

Time: 3 weeks.
Servings Per Container: 8 Persons.
Calorie content (100 g): 235 kcal.
Purpose: appetizer.
Cuisine: Russian.
Difficulty: easy.

In order for the dried fish to have a slight characteristic bitterness, it is recommended not to completely remove the insides of the roach. Sometimes the roach is dried unplugged. In small carcasses, cut the abdomen, in large carcasses - the back. For salting, the vobla is placed with its backs up, then filled with brine. Oppression is installed from above. The processing time is similar to that indicated in the rest of the recipes (10 days). Vobla is used with light or dark beer.

Ingredients:

vobla - 1 kg;
salt - 100-200 g.

Cooking method:

Peel the carcasses, pickle. If you are going to rub the vobla with salt, then after 10 days it must be rinsed in running water. After using brine, the carcasses are placed in water for 2 hours. The soaking time depends on the salting period.
Hang the vobla to wither. Remember that the natural drying time depends on the size of the roach. The finished delicacy should have a tight back.

Drying or curing

Distinctive features of drying and curing are presented in the table:

Pink salmon

Time: 2 days.
Servings: 8-10 people.
Calorie content (100 g): 182 kcal.
Purpose: appetizer.
Cuisine: Russian.
Difficulty: easy.

If you often have guests, long gatherings with friends are organized, then be sure to pay attention to this simple recipe. The delicacy is perfect for use either alone or with a hoppy drink. Pink salmon is not too oily, therefore it is suitable for those who follow the figure. Tasty balyk to use with bread, vegetables: canapes, sandwiches can be formed.

Ingredients:

pink salmon - 1.5 kg;
salt - 3 tbsp. l;
sugar - 1 tbsp. l .;
spices - optional.

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Cooking method:

Defrost, rinse, cut the carcasses into plates.
Combine salt, sugar, spices. Sprinkle the mixture over the meat, stir. Leave everything for a day.
Spread the pink salmon on a baking sheet, put in the oven, in which the temperature is set to 40 degrees, for 4-6 hours. The oven door must be open.
The finished delicacy is cooled in the refrigerator, then served on the table.

Drying with household appliances

Separately, it is worth talking about the methods of drying fish using household appliances. You can dry pre-salted raw materials as follows:

in the oven. The fish is laid out in one layer on a wire rack. They dry it at a temperature of 80 ℃ and the door ajar or the convection mode turned on. Two hours after the start of processing, the heads are wrapped in foil and the product is heated for another 5-6 hours. The fish turns out to be soft, and you have to bring it to readiness, hanging it in the room for a few more days;
in an electric dryer. Only a device in which you can set the temperature to 30 ℃ and powerful airflow will do. The process takes at least two days;
over the stove. A small amount of fish can be hung from the kitchen ceiling. If there is a household hood, it will be constantly blown with air and will dry out in 4-5 days.

It should be noted that drying fish with household appliances is not the best way. In this case, it reaches readiness too quickly, which negatively affects the taste and smell.

There is an opinion that fish can be not only dried, but also dried-smoked. This is not true. Drying and smoking are fundamentally different processes, both in the sense of changes to which the fabrics of raw materials are subjected, and in terms of the consumer qualities of the finished product. Perhaps the reason for the misconception was the similarity of the stages. preprocessing fish (salting and steeping), which are necessary for preparation both for drying and for cold smoking. There is no separate product called "dried-smoked fish".

Zander

Time: 12 days.
Calorie content of the dish (100 g): 84 kcal.
Purpose: appetizer.
Cuisine: Russian.
Difficulty: easy.

This predator belongs to the sturgeon family and does not have too fatty meat, but it makes an excellent delicacy. Pike perch is dried and salted quickly, and there is no need to create any special conditions. Do everything as in the rest of the preparation of the delicacy. The only difference in this recipe is the presence of the original salting mixture. Tasty with parsley, dill, black pepper. Milk or kvass will make the meat more tender.

Ingredients:

pike perch - 1.5 kg;
horseradish (leaves) - 400 g;
salt - 200 g;
milk or kvass - 200 ml;
vinegar (9%) - 200 ml;

Cooking method:

Peel, rinse, cut the pike perch into layers. Rub it with vinegar, salt. In addition, fish carcasses can be poured with a solution of vinegar and water, wait 2 hours.
Chop horseradish, mix it with chopped parsley, dill, spices.
At the bottom of the container, spread the salt in a layer of 1 cm. Lay out the carcasses. Sprinkle each layer of fish with salt, a mixture of spices and herbs. Wait 2 days. The salting period depends on the size of the carcasses.
Soak the meat in water with milk or kvass for 2 hours.
Dry the pike perch, hang to dry, wait 10 days. The drying time depends on the size of the pike perch.

How much to keep fish in salt before drying

In order to correctly answer this question, first consider step by step the instruction, which is recognized as the simplest and most accessible, without frills, subtleties and super secrets.

Here, in fact, we answered the question - how long to salt the fish for drying.

Ide

Time: 15 days.
Servings Per Container: 10 Persons.
Calorie content of the dish (100 g): 117 kcal.
Purpose: appetizer.
Cuisine: Russian.
Difficulty: easy.

Yaz is best cooked in the fall. At this time, he "fattens up" the first fat, so it turns out to be more tasty. This recipe is very simple and straightforward. To create a delicacy, you do not need to use any special tools (for example, as is required when smoking). All you need is to have freshly caught fish available.

Ingredients:

medium-sized ides - 20 pcs.;
laurel leaves - 6 pcs.;
salt - 2 kg;
dill, parsley, spices - optional.

Cooking method:

Peel, rinse the ide.
Use a dry salting method: salt, 2 laurel leaves, spices, chopped herbs are distributed on each layer of fish.
Everything is covered with a polyethylene sheet. Oppression is being laid.
After 5 days, ides are soaked for about 1 hour.
Yazi are suspended from a rope. Drying takes about 10 days. If this period is increased, then you will receive dried fish.

How much to dry the fish in time

Before you know the answer to this question, let's take a closer look at the whole process of "cooking" dried fish. From the selection of the necessary materials to the right choice places.

What we need. First of all, a thin cord or twine. You can even use wire. To pass the selected type of cord through the fish heads without any problems, you will need either a carnation or an awl. By the way, do not forget about the matches or toothpicks, which you use to grind the fish from the inside for better ventilation.

Where are we going to dry. This is one of the main points, since this can not be done everywhere. In general, there are three main requirements for the place where the fish are wilted:

There should be a shadow during the day;
Most of the time there is a draft;
The place should be protected from rain and free from flies.

The summer veranda at the dacha is recognized as an ideal place. However, if there is no summer cottage, then as an option, you can use a balcony or a non-residential room in the apartment. You can dry it on stretch marks, as described above, or on a clothes dryer, or in a vegetable dryer. You can wither in summer, but withering fish in winter is not a problem either. The main thing is to follow the step-by-step instructions correctly.

Step-by-step instruction. Now let's get down to the process itself.

We take the carcass, shake off the salt. In order for it to be less salty (this is not for everybody), you can lower it in boiling water for a couple of seconds.
Using a cord or wire, whichever you choose, we connect the fish through the eye sockets or through the gill slits. The main thing is that the fish is not tightly placed. This is necessary for free circulation of air and evaporation of water.
We hang the "garlands" in the place that we have chosen in advance and cover with gauze from flies. Let me remind you that this is the simplest and most popular way. Some aesthetes sprinkle just a little vinegar to scare off flies and wasps that salted fish pulls like honey. But this is optional, you can just use gauze.

How much to dry. And now to the main question - how long should the fish be dried?

If you turn to the Internet, you can stumble upon completely different terms, from 2-3 days to 2-3 weeks ... Terms vary due to several parameters, such as size, salting time, fat content, etc. However, the most important parameter, as experts assure in this matter, is heat. Drying on it is strongly discouraged. Since the meat will be dry, hard and unpleasantly bitter. Therefore, they are trying to find a middle ground.

Bream

Time: 2 weeks.
Servings Per Container: 15-20 Persons.
Calorie content of the dish (100 g): 221 kcal.
Purpose: lunch, afternoon tea, dinner.
Cuisine: Russian.
Difficulty: easy.

If the catch consists of bream, then they can be used to make an excellent snack. Drying fish is an excellent solution. It is most convenient to prepare a delicacy (you can see its originality from the photo) using dry salting. If you decide to use a wet ambassador, then the main thing is to make the brine correctly, because the taste of the delicacy depends on it.

Ingredients:

medium-sized bream - 20 pcs.;
coarse salt - 200 g;
dill, parsley, spices - optional.

Cooking method:

Gut, rinse with bream. Rub them inside with salt.
Pour about 5 tbsp into the bottom of the dish. l. salt. Lay the bream on top, sprinkle with salt, chopped herbs, spices. Press down with something heavy and put in a dark, cool place for a week.
Soak the salted carcasses in water for about 1 hour.
Use cold dry for bream. Place the fillets, for example, on the balcony, dry for 7 days.
Dried fish is packed in wooden boxes, stored for 10 months in a cool place.

Assessment of the quality of the finished product; storage

Correctly dried fish has smooth and strong scales without traces of salt. Her skin adheres well and is easily removable. The pulp is firm, flexible and elastic, slightly shiny, translucent, amber or pinkish in color. The taste is lightly salted, the aroma is spicy and piquant. Such a product can be wrapped in thick paper or cloth and stored in a cool place with moderate humidity for up to six months.

Read more about how to store dried fish here.

Now you know how to dry fish properly. Share your opinion and experience in the comments.

Blue whiting

Time: 4 days.
Servings Per Container: 8 Persons.
Calorie content of the dish (100 g): 255 kcal.
Purpose: appetizer.
Cuisine: Russian.
Difficulty: easy.

If your family members love to eat fish in in different ways then try this simple recipe. You will need blue whiting for him. It is worth using the wet salting method. Drying is done in the oven or outside. In the second case, relatively more time is spent on cooking. Keep in mind that blue whiting lasts 5 hours in the oven, and about a week outside.

Ingredients:

medium-sized blue whiting - 1 kg;
water - 1 l;
coarse salt - 4 tbsp. l .;
sugar - 2 tbsp. l .;
black peppercorns, laurel leaves - optional.

Cooking method:

Peel the blue whiting.
Bring water to a boil. Add salt, sugar, pepper, lavrushka. Based on the brine made, determine the taste of the delicacy. Cool the mixture, pour the blue whiting into it. Wait 3 days.
Rinse the blue whiting, place on a baking sheet, put in the oven (set to 40 degrees) for 5 hours. Leave the oven door open.

What kind of fish can you dry?

Small or medium-sized river fish are suitable for drying or drying, namely:

rudd;
ram;
roach;
vobla;
sabrefish;
perch;
zander;
carp;
bastard;
Pike;
gudgeon;
crucian carp;
carp.

For drying, you should use exclusively fresh fish caught no more than a day ago. Otherwise, the product may become rancid before it is cooked.

Trout

Time: 3 days.
Servings Per Container: 10 Persons.
Calorie content (100 g): 186 kcal.
Purpose: appetizer.
Cuisine: Russian.
Difficulty: easy.

This red fish, which belongs to the salmon family, can be used to make an original delicacy. Often he is prepared for some important event: at New Year, wedding. All kinds of salads and savory snacks are made with the addition of trout. In addition, it is delicious to use it simply with bread: make beautiful sandwiches, canapes. The most important thing to create a delicacy is to purchase a quality fillet. It is desirable that it be chilled.

Ingredients:

medium-sized trout - 1 kg;
salt - 4 tbsp. l .;
sugar - 2 tbsp. l .;
lemon juice - 2 tbsp. l .;
black pepper - optional.

Cooking method:

Cut the fillets. The size of the pieces should be about 10 cm. Rub them with lemon juice, pepper, sugar. The pieces are placed in a container between the layers of salt, pressed from above with something heavy. Refrigerate the trout for 2 days.
Dry salted trout in the oven with the door open for 4-5 hours. Determine its readiness by the backs. They must be dry.
The salted fish is cut into thin slices before serving. When doing this, aim the knife at an acute angle.

Selection and preparation of raw materials

The drying process is the drying of pre-salted fish. At the same time, the pulp is dehydrated, saturated with natural fat and fermented (as the fishermen say, “ripens”), acquiring a piquant taste and a very attractive aroma. You can dry fish both sea and river. It can be a smelt, a goby, a flounder, a sprat, a bison, etc. From the river inhabitants, representatives of small breeds are most often harvested in this way: roach, sabrefish, silver bream, brood, rudd, roach, ram, etc. According to experts, very catfish are tasty in dried form (it is better to make balyks from it), pike, carp, perch and bream, as well as chub, asp and ide.

How to dry fish: salt, soak and dry

Before you can dry the fish, you need to prepare it. The stage comes down to careful cleaning of the catch from dirt and mucus. You do not need to wash the fish and remove the scales from it. Small specimens (weighing up to 500 g) are usually not gutted. In large fish, the entrails are usually removed. In this case, the incision is made not from the side of the abdomen, but from the back, cutting through the meat to the ridge and separating the ribs on one side from the spine. This method was invented in order not to disturb the fat layer, which is located under the skin of the abdomen. It is not necessary to dry the fish, cleaned "from the belly": it will turn out to be dry and tough.

Now you can start the main process, which is divided into three stages: salting, soaking and actually drying.

Roach

Time: 15 days.
Servings Per Container: 8-10 Persons.
Calorie content of the dish (100 g): 148 kcal.
Purpose: appetizer.
Cuisine: Russian.
Difficulty: easy.

The appetizer tastes like dried ram or roach. It is well served with light or dark beer. The best time to cook roach is in the spring. At this time, she still does not have time to be saturated with the smell of mud. In the spring, the roach goes for spawning, therefore it has a good fat content. The delicacy turns out to be tender and nutritious (make sure of its uniqueness from the photo).

Ingredients:

roach - 1 kg;
coarse salt - 100 g.

Cooking method:

Peel the roach, remove the scales. Rub the inside and outside of the carcasses with salt.
Pour 1 cm of salt on the bottom of the container. Lay down the roach. Store the dishes in a cool place for 5 days.
Soak the roach for about 3 hours.
Hang the carcasses on a rope on a well-ventilated balcony or street out of the sun. Drying is carried out for 10 days.

Basic rules for drying

When salting fish, it is important to follow several rules:

The utensils in which you place the raw materials must be steel, enamelled, glass, ceramic, wood, or made of food grade plastic. The use of galvanized containers is unacceptable;
for fish processing, choose a coarse salt that does not contain iodine. Iodized salt gives the product an unpleasant aftertaste, and fine salt penetrates the tissues too quickly, preventing them from dehydrating;
the container in which the fish is salted must be kept in a cool place;
in no case should the recommended salting time be reduced. It depends both on the method and on the size of the raw material, but it cannot be less than a day for small fish and 5 days for larger specimens. Violation of this condition is fraught with serious health problems (for example, infection with opisthorchiasis or poisoning).

These are general principles. There are many methods of salting fish, and almost every experienced fisherman adds his own nuances to them.

There are many methods of salting fish, and almost every experienced fisherman adds his own nuances to them.

How to get rid of flies?

In summer, the following methods are used to control flies and other insects:

Before drying, the carcasses are soaked for 10 minutes in a vinegar solution - 10 liters of water and 120 milliliters of essence.
Fish heads are treated with sunflower oil.
The carcasses are rubbed with onions or garlic.
The bundles are covered with gauze without leaving large holes. Sprinkle it with 9% vinegar.
The workpieces are treated with a solution prepared from vegetable oil and vinegar (at a ratio of 1: 3).

Drying box

Drying cabinet

Drying cabinet for drying

Salting recipes

Glass or plastic dishes are taken. At the same time, the dehydration of fish is slow, which is absolutely necessary in this process. There are several ways to pickle:

Dry salting

Suitable for large specimens weighing more than 1 kg.

The fish is cut along the back, the insides are carefully removed.
Clean the inside of the carcass with a damp cloth.
Salt the interior cavities liberally.
Close with a flat lid.
They put oppression.

For 10 kg of fish you need 1-2 kg of salt. The fish will be salted from 3 to 12 days. Oppression is needed so that air bubbles containing bacteria are released. In the process of salting, juice will begin to stand out. It will drain down through the slots of the drawer. That is why this method of salting is called dry.

Note! If you need to salt a lot of small fish, then the insides are not removed. It is best to spread out a cloth, spread the fish on it, sprinkle with salt and wrap with this cloth. The fabric will let the juice through if you put some kind of weight on top (oppression).

Wet

Most often, a small fish is salted in a wet way:

Sprinkle the bottom of the selected dishes (saucepan, basin, etc.) with salt.
Lay the fish as closely as possible in layers.
Sprinkle salt on each layer
The top layer is also generously sprinkled with salt.
Put oppression on top.

Note! After a couple of days, brine will appear on top of the last layer. At the time of salting, the container must be placed in the cellar so that the meat does not deteriorate. A refrigerator is also suitable for these purposes. In field conditions, you can dig a hole in the ground. When salted with a wet method, small specimens are salted very quickly, in just a day or two.

Provesnoy

Prepare a solution at the rate of 3-3.5 kg of salt per 10 liters of water.
The solution is pumped into the belly of large specimens with a syringe.
String the fish on a string.
Immersed in the solution completely.

What is drying

There is nothing difficult or impracticable in drying fish, anyone can do it. In fact, this method of harvesting consists in impregnating the fish carcass with salt and then drying it in natural conditions.

Slow drying makes the fish not only salty, but also spicy, in its own way piquant, its taste is very rich (concentrated). At the same time, the following comes out with the product:

Protein tissues, saturated with fat, become more elastic and dense.
The pulp acquires a translucent, orange-yellow hue.
Caviar (if any) is dried and compacted, turning into a full-fledged delicacy.

Preparing the product for drying

After the product is well salted, we proceed to the next stage - soaking. We carry out this procedure to rid the fish of excess salt. We rinse the carcasses for 20 minutes, and then soak for 3-7 hours, at the rate of 1 day of salting = 1 hour of soaking.

To check if the product is ready for drying, we use the following methods:

press on the back of the carcass, if a hole has formed, then you can proceed to the next stage;
we take the carcass with one hand by the head, with the other by the tail and stretch it, if the vertebra begins to crunch, then the fish can be dried.

If the product does not "pass" the readiness test, we leave it to salt for another 1 day.

The benefits of salted carp

Salted fish improves digestion and metabolism, especially fats.
Salted carp prevents early aging of the skin and internal organs, as well as osteoporosis.
Fish replenishes iodine deficiency, which is especially important for those who have problems with the thyroid gland.

In addition, carp meat is not very high in calories, which is especially important for maintaining a healthy figure: only 124 kcal per 100 grams of product.

How to dry fish in summer so that flies don't land?

When drying fish in summer, there is a high probability of spoilage of the product by larvae of flies. The aroma that the fermenting fish gives off is very attractive to insects. To prevent this from happening, follow the advice of experienced anglers.

Before hanging the fish carcasses to dry, lightly grease them (optional):

vinegar solution (3%)
sunflower oil
a weak solution of potassium permanganate
a mixture of vegetable oil with vinegar in a ratio of 1: 3

Also, dry your catch in this way:

hang the fish out to dry in the late evening - then there are no flies. During the night, the carcasses will dry out, and their gills will be covered with a dry crust. Insects will no longer be scary
cover the drying fish with gauze so that there is free space between them (use small spacers for this)
keep in mind that the longer the fish dries, the less attractive it becomes to flies. Therefore, it is very important to secure the product in the early days.

Many fishermen use special boxes for drying, which are very easy to do on their own:

make a box out of slats
cover it with gauze or mesh
make one side of the box with a lid so that you can get the finished fish as needed

Features of drying fish in the cold season

For high-quality drying, warm, dry weather is needed, so in winter and autumn you have to create it at home.

If we dry fish in the cold season, you need to know:

after soaking, hang the fish over the bathtub to drain the fat;
the best drying place is a glazed loggia or a balcony with ajar windows;
when drying in winter or autumn, only a dry method of salting is suitable;
places near the radiator or above the stove are suitable;
plus drying in the cold season - no flies.

In winter, it is difficult to cook fish properly. For drying, you need fresh cool air and low humidity, and in the heating season it is very warm in the apartments. The meat will dry out quickly, but will not have time to ripen.

Soaking fish

To reduce the salt content in the outer layers of fish meat, soak is done. The soaking process must be approached responsibly. This is done so that during storage the already dry fish does not dampen.

How to catch more fish?

Every ardent fisherman undoubtedly has his own secrets of successful fishing. During my conscious fishing, I myself have found quite a few ways to improve the bite. I share my TOP:

Bite activator. Stimulates a strong appetite in fish, attracting them even in cold water. It's all the fault of the pheromones that make up it. It is a pity that Rosprirodnadzor wants to ban its sale.
Correct selection of gear. Read the relevant guides for a specific type of gear on the pages of my website.
Baits based on pheromones.

You can get the rest of the secrets of successful fishing for free by reading my other materials on the site.
Soak should only be hours, how many days the salting lasted:

Put a fish in a container with water.
Every few hours they take it out for the same time, then put it back.
When it comes to the surface, it is taken out.

How and how much to dry fish in an electric dryer?

Many people use an electric dryer to speed up the process of drying and drying fish. Such a device is convenient in that the increased temperature and forced ventilation accelerate the dehydration of the product.

Features of this method:

the fish does not need to be marinated for a long time, 7 hours is enough
at 50 degrees the fish is dried for about 5-7 hours. At a higher temperature, the carcass can simply be steamed and the meat will separate from the bones. Some people advise not to turn on the heating awning at all, but to put the device in the blowing mode. So the fish will dry longer - about a day.

to speed up the process, you can dry the fish not entirely, but by cutting it into layers
dried fish is very tasty, pieces of which were marinated in a marinade of 0.5 cups of lemon juice, 5 tsp. salt, 2 tbsp. chopped parsley and 1 chopped onion

Choice

I must say that not every fish is suitable for drying, but only one that, as it were, matures in the process of natural drying. When exposed to the sun and fresh air, it acquires a specific taste and aroma. An important condition for this is its freshness and fat content. The best species are considered to be ram, bream, roach, perch, as well as sabrefish, capelin, roach, carp and others.

Can fish be dried without scales?

Usually, when drying fish, scales are not removed for the following reasons:

it protects the inner tissues of the carcass from deformation and contamination
when salting, this will save the meat from strong corrosion by salt
lack of scales will lead to excessive drying of the product

In some cases, fish scales are peeled off. As a rule, they do this with large copies or for the purpose of more convenient use of the finished product. However, experts say that such fish is less tasty, as it turns out to be too dry and unflavored.

How and how much to dry fish in the microwave?

Microwave fish is difficult to dry. This is due to the fact that for this process, not so much temperature is important as air circulation. And to achieve this in the microwave is almost impossible. In addition, the door of this kitchen appliance must not be opened during operation, as is the case with an oven. And there will be no additional air flow.

Therefore, only a microwave oven with convection can be suitable for drying fish. The temperature should be set low (no more than 40 degrees), and the fish should be laid out in one row. Drying times will depend on the size of the fish and your oven.

In this case, there will always be a high probability that your fish will simply bake and not dry out.

When handling and storing the catch, experienced fishermen take into account the details to make the process easier and more efficient:

When salting, large specimens are placed on the bottom of the dish, and small ones on top.
Carcasses of the same size are strung on one cord. Then she will be ready at the same time.
To dry the house faster, the abdomens are opened by inserting toothpicks.
In winter, they make a frame box for hanging. Together with the frame, the fish can be moved from place to place.
Balyk can be prepared from large fat specimens by drying.
If the fish becomes damp due to improper storage and acquires a musty aftertaste, it can be washed in a weak salt solution and dried again.

Drying fish is a simple and effective process. Over time, experience is gained that allows you to make the most of the available conditions and opportunities. It is necessary to carefully monitor how the properties of the fish change during drying. Then you get a delicious and aromatic delicacy that can be served both to festive table, and use at a warm friendly meeting.

In this video, an avid fisherman shares tips on how to properly dry fish.

Reviews

I love very dry fish. It keeps very well. You can wrap it in a wet cloth for several hours, the fish will become softer. But this is not for everybody. Grade:

Nikolay V., Moscow

In autumn I catch chubs and wither them. This is something. I have never eaten anything tastier. The neck is still beyond any competition. Very tasty. But the perches need to be underdried a little, I know from experience. Grade:

Vladimir D., Saratov

I have two containers for salting. I put them one into the other with a gap of 2 cm. At the top there is a hole for the brine to drain. I don't use oppression. I just put these containers in the refrigerator for 3 days. Then I rinse and soak for 6-8 hours. Then I dry the fish. Always a great thing to go with beer. Grade:

Mikhail L., Amursk

I often wilted fish, because I am an avid fisherman and a rammer. The most delicious dried fish is the autumn one, which has already grown fat and dries slowly. Grade:

Vasily L., Volgograd

I put the fish in a wooden barrel in a salt solution. I keep the product like this for three days. The fish has been dried for 15 days. The taste is excellent. Grade:

Ilya S., Ryazan

Note! It's easy enough to wilt fish at home. Shop fish contains many chemical additives, various preservatives. Therefore, a self-made product is natural and healthy, as well as has an unsurpassed taste and aroma.

What is the difference between dried fish and dried fish?

People are not very interested in the difference between curing and drying, if this does not prevent them from enjoying their favorite taste. For those who have decided to comprehend the intricacies of cooking dried fish at home, it is important to understand that drying is only a certain stage preceding the drying of salted fish. While dried fish is unlikely to transform into a dried stage. Consider the main differences between procurement methods:

Both salted and unsalted fish are dried. Unsalted product - a semi-finished product intended for making soups and other fish dishes... Salted fish can be eaten immediately.
An exceptionally salted fish is dried. During the preparation process, the product ripens, acquiring the required characteristics. The product can be eaten immediately after preparation.

It is interesting! Polyunsaturated fatty acids stored in dried fish stimulate the functionality of the hematopoietic system and protect the body from malignant neoplasms.

Training

To dry, it is better to take a medium (not ˃ 1 kg), and cut the large into pieces, rinse with running water. Do not peel off the scales, just take out the giblets. There are fans of drying trifles with them. This fish acquires a spicy bitterness. And it is better to carefully gut it, being careful not to damage the gallbladder. All fish are cut in the area of the peritoneum, large ones - even from the side of the back, are again thoroughly washed.

How to choose

Some dry only small fish after a bad catch, others deliberately choose carcasses for salting. Of the inhabitants of rivers and lakes, bream, roach, carp, roach and ram are best suited. Marine representatives suitable for drying are goby, pike perch and bearing.

Depending on your preferences, you can choose fish of different sizes. Better to dry not too small fish, but not very large. In the first case, it hardens quickly. A large fish dries for a long time, it must be protected from insects and constantly monitor storage conditions. You should not stop your choice on fish with many small bones, for example, crucian carp.

How to prepare fish for drying?

Dried is a fish that is first salted and slowly dried in the open air. Due to the slow dehydration, the product gradually ripens.

Before salting, the fish must be thoroughly rinsed and cleaned. Scales should not be peeled off. Large specimens must be cut, gutted. In this case, do not touch the skin with scales. And in order to get the insides, you need to make an incision along the back.

Drying in winter

An appetizing fish comes out if you catch it in winter or spring, as it contains more fat. In winter, it is more difficult to make it, since the normal process takes place in the open air.

Drying fish at home in winter is also more difficult, since the house is warm and drying is going on too quickly. The fish is not as appetizing as in summer. At the same time, a specific smell spreads through the house.

But in winter there are no flies, so there is no need to think about how to protect the product from this scourge. In winter, a dry method of salting should be used. The fish is salted, washed and hung over the stove, near the radiator.

Drying in summer

An appetizing fish is obtained by drying it in summer, when the weather is good:

The process should take place in the fresh air.
In the sun all the valuable fat will drain out of it.
The fish must be hung so that they are not pressed against each other.
Better to place in the shade, somewhere under a canopy.
It is advisable to dry small fish horizontally on a net.
When the weather is too hot, you can dry the fish in the attic if there is good ventilation.
You can dry the fish in a cool cellar on the balcony.

Salting

Before you dry the fish , it is salted. Take freshly caught or frozen, thawed at room temperature. If in doubt: how to salt correctly, the optimal method is chosen:

Advice: as you add salt, you will get this taste, although it is better to slightly oversalt. How long it will take depends on the total quantity, carcass size, temperature. On average, 4–7 days. Readiness check: pull the tail, head, hear a creak. The back should be firm, sunken, firm sides, dark gray flesh. With the brine method, the solution is saturated if raw materials do not sink in it: an egg or a piece of potato.

The main stages of preparation

The cooking process includes:

Treatment.
Salting.
Soaking.

Salting

There are three main ways to salt fish:

dry;
wet;
tuzluchny.

Dry salting

The dry method is most often used when salting trophies weighing more than one kilogram, namely:

pike;
carp;
bream and other large fish.

For dry salting, you need to do this:

Cut the carcasses along the ridge, remove the insides, flatten.
Salt from the inside.
Place the fish belly up in a wooden box.
Sprinkle the scales with salt.
Cover with foil and press down with a load.
Leave the box in a cool place for three to seven days.

In this way, you can also salt a small fish without gutting it.

Wet salting

The wet method is used for carcasses weighing up to one kilogram. For salting, you need large enamel pots or plastic barrels.

This process includes steps:

Remove dirt from the fish using a dry method.
Remove entrails.
Cover the bottom of the container with a layer of salt for at least a few centimeters.
Lay the carcasses so that the back of one overlaps the belly of the other, sprinkle with salt.
Place the next layer of fish perpendicular to the previous one.
Finish styling, generously sprinkle the top layer with salt.
Cover with a lid of a smaller diameter and press down with a load.
After some time, after the release of the juice, which will cover the fish, remove the container to a cold place.
The readiness time depends on the size of the carcasses and is up to three days.

Salting in brine

This method of salting is best for small fish weighing up to half a kilogram.

For this method you need:

Prepare brine - add salt to the water and stir thoroughly. Determine the concentration of the solution by dropping an egg into it, it should float. Approximate ratio: three liters of water per kilogram of salt.
Place the fish in the solution so that it covers it completely (approximate volume - 1 liter per 3 kilograms of raw material). It is more convenient to pre-string the carcasses on a rope and immerse them in brine with them.
Cover with gauze and press down with a load.
Keep in a cool place for three days.

With his video recipe for salting large river fish shared by Vladimir Plisov.

Soaking

Before drying, the fish is subjected to soaking in order to remove excess salt from the carcasses, and to desalinate the surface. This is necessary so that the finished product is not raw and tasty.

To do this, you should:

Remove the fish from the brine and let it rest so that the salt is evenly distributed throughout the whole carcass.
Rinse the fish thoroughly in running fresh water and remove mucus from it.
Put the carcasses in a container and fill them with cold water, changing it periodically. (The soak time is equal to the salting time; readiness can be determined by floating carcasses).
Wipe the fish dry and put it on paper to drain excess liquid.

Drying

The final step is to hang the carcass for further drying.

This can be done in two ways:

The fish is suspended by the tail - for this, in the area of the rear fin, you need to make a hole through which the wire is threaded. Then the ligaments are suspended in a ventilated place. In this position, excess moisture and stomach contents will drain out through the mouth opening, therefore, the finished product will not have a bitter taste.
The fish is suspended by the head - for this, a wire or rope is threaded through the eye holes. Fat and bile will remain inside and saturate the meat, it will become softer and have a slight bitterness.

General rules for drying fish:

hang carcasses on a stainless steel wire or thin weave rope;
workpieces should not be in contact with each other;
the bundles are hung in a small draft in the shade;
for better drying, you can hang the carcasses in direct sunlight for 3-5 hours;
if the weather is humid and not warm enough, large fish need to cut the belly, open it and insert "spacer sticks" there;
the time of complete drying in good wet weather is from three to five days.

Outdoors

On open air

Features of outdoor fish drying:

the procedure is carried out in sunny weather at a temperature of 18-20 ° C;
bundles are placed on horizontal grids, slats, hung in open boxes or under a canopy;
in rainy weather, they are hidden under an awning or indoors.

On the balcony

Ventilated balconies are ideal for drying your catch, especially in cloudy and cold weather.

We dry the fish on the balcony like this:

We cover the floor in the room.
We put the basin under the hanging seafood so that the leaking fat does not stain the room.
We open the windows slightly to ensure air circulation.

In the room

Withering fish in the house is not the best option because of the specific smell. In the apartment, bundles can be hung next to the heating device (in the winter season) by placing a fan next to it, or by placing carcasses over a gas stove.

In the cellar

The cellar is suitable for drying small fish, but most likely it will have to be brought to the desired condition in a warmer place. Large seafood dries more slowly and turns rancid before it dries well.

In the cellar, due to the low temperature, drying can take up to two to three weeks.

In the attic

Benefits of drying in the attic:

the roof gets very hot, drafts will speed up drying;
neither sun nor rain will fall on the carcasses;
there is always enough space under the roof.

The main rule is to hang the ligaments higher.

In the oven

Drying in the oven goes like this:

Place the salted fish in rows on the wire rack. Place a baking sheet or aluminum foil down.
Set the temperature to about 80 ° C (no higher), so that you do not get just a baked fish. Open the oven door 5-7 cm.
The fish should be dried for two hours, then cover the heads with heat-resistant foil and leave for another 4-6 hours.
Hang up and dry for a few more days.

In an electric dryer

For drying, any convection electric dryer with a heating shutdown function is suitable. A built-in fan will circulate the air.

The temperature should be about 30 ° C, otherwise the fish will steam and begin to fall apart. Depending on the size, the process will take from 2 to 4 days.

Drying time for fish

Drying takes less time in warmer months than in winter. The size of the carcass is also important. So, the duration of drying in vivo (outdoors):

In spring or summer, if it is not damp outside and there is a slight breeze, the drying process takes no more than 8 days. For small fish - less than 48 hours.
During the winter cold, it takes about 45 days - during this time, moisture will simply freeze out of the carcasses. In a heated room, the process will be reduced to 1 - 2 weeks.

Even after the specified time has elapsed, the readiness of the carcasses must be checked: the dried fish is dense, elastic, without salt crystals on the surface and strong skin.

It happens that during the drying process, the fish turns out to be tasteless or deteriorates literally in a month. To protect your catch from such troubles, it is enough to adhere to the following recommendations:

Laying out the carcasses for salting, lay the largest specimens on the bottom.
String fish of the same size on one line, which will ensure uniform drying.
A toothpick inserted into the abdomen will greatly speed up the process and make it more efficient.
If during storage the fish began to give off mustiness, it is enough to rinse it in a weak saline solution and repeat the drying procedure.
It is better to hang carcasses on the balcony after sunset. During the night, the fish will become weathered and will cease to attract insects to itself.
Some people advise to dry the fish without scales, but during the cooking process the product loses its aroma, becomes dry and tasteless.
The best time to cook the product is spring or autumn.

Where to store dried fish

The shelf life of the product depends on the storage conditions. You can wrap the fish in parchment or natural fabric and seal in a plastic bag. Place in the freezer for storage.

The condition of the packaging should be checked regularly. If condensation appears on the bag, then the “cover” of the fish needs to be replaced. If you miss the moment - the product is saturated with moisture and damp.

By placing the finished carcasses in linen or paper bags, and hanging them in a cool place, you can enjoy your favorite product for six months. If you store fish in an airtight closed bank, the product will not lose its useful and taste qualities for 5 months.

How to dry fish in summer so flies don't land

In the summertime, flies literally swarm over the aromatic carcasses, trying to stick around them with their larvae. To prevent flies from landing on fish, you can prepare any solution suggested below and grease each carcass with it:

vinegar solution 3%;
sunflower oil;
a weak solution of potassium permanganate;
a mixture of sunflower oil with vinegar 1: 3.

The most important thing is to save the fish from flies in the first days, just during this period the meat dries up and becomes unattractive to buzzing insects. It is preferable to hang the fish in the evening, when the flies do not fly. In addition, the hanging carcasses can be covered with gauze.

Drying objects

Almost all types of fish can be used to prepare your favorite treat for a foamy drink. Even species such as pike or carp can be dried, but the undoubted leaders among such snacks are bream and roach.

In addition to them, they are dried:

guster;
sopu;
crucian carp;
rudd;
bleak;
sabrefish;
shemayu;
fish;
podusta;
chub;
perch;
and many other representatives of the fish fauna.

What kind of fish is suitable for drying?

Small species are distinguished by good taste: roach, ram, sabrefish. You can also take big fish: catfish, bream, pike perch. You can buy frozen options such as mackerel, halibut, herring and wither at home after thawing.

Good for these purposes are roach, breeder, pike, ide, bleak. The most delicious will be fresh fish, which was salted on the day of fishing, and then wilted.

The subtleties of salting carp

Salting carp provides several subtleties on which the taste and quality of salted fish depends, namely:

Coarse salt

Carp, like most other fish, is salted only with coarse salt. Only such salt can remove excess liquid from the carcass. Fine salt is not capable of this, it only quickly greases the meat.

Competent carp cutting

Before you salt the carp, you need to cut it properly. Unlike small and medium fish, large fish are gutted and, if desired, cut into pieces. The main thing is not to remove the film covering the fat layer from the abdominal cavity.

We cut the carcasses along the back, cutting off the ribs from the ridge on one side. After cutting, do not rinse the fish, but wipe it with a cloth, gently blotting the abdominal area.

Salting carp

Salt large fish in whole or in pieces, medium (1-3 kg in weight) and small fish as a whole. Usually the fish is rubbed with salt over the scales, salt is poured under the gills and into the mouth cavity. The smaller fish is simply sprinkled with salt.

Now let's move on to the technologies for salting carp fish.

Pickled carp.

You don't need any special skills to just salt the fish. To really do original dish with a delicate taste, you can make carp in a marinade. It will take a little more time, but trust me - it's worth it.

We use hot marinade instead of brine. The recipe for the latter is different for everyone. The simplest composition is stewed onions, carrots and spices. Further, salting carp does not differ at all from the usual method.

Cool the marinade and fill it with fish. We will definitely put it under the load. The salting time depends on the size of the fish: large fish can be salted for a week, small things will be enough for 2-3 days. To remove excess salt, the fish is washed before hanging.

Another secret from the chef: a small amount of vegetable oil (50g per 1 kg),

The oil added to the solution is said to add softness to the product as well as remove excess salt.

As you can see, dried carp at home is a dish, if not the most exquisite, then quite worthy and as a snack it can diversify any table.

There are also such recipes on our website:

Home-style salted silver carp - correct salting silver carp at home Salted fish is not only tasty dish, but also a way to keep the fish product fit for consumption. Home-style salty silver carp is an uncomplicated dish.

Quick salting of trout at home - recipe with salt and sugar Red fish is good because it is delicious in any form - no matter how you cook it! But who would refuse lightly salted fish, for example? Salting trout at home.

How to salt grayling at home Salting grayling at home does not require any special skills. A quarter of an hour later, this incredibly delicious fish... Certainly salt it.

Salting bream for drying at home Well-organized salting of bream at home will not take much time and effort, but almost all lovers of beer and snacks can enjoy the result.

Preparing fish for proper drying

The scales are never peeled off, and the smaller fish does not need to be gutted. Fat in the abdomen and viscera gives a more intense flavor.

In herbivorous species, the insides are taken out in the summer, since the contents of the stomach quickly deteriorate and give the abdomen bitterness.

Large specimens are cut completely. They are gutted, leaving the skin and scales intact. The abdomen is left intact to keep the fat inside. To remove the viscera, a longitudinal incision is made along the dorsal fin. Do not rinse the cut carcass and its parts with water.

Finally ...

Interestingly, jerky fish helps destroy cancer cells. This is because it contains Omega-3 fatty acids. Moreover, this product helps to protect against depression during pregnancy, prevent the development of Alzheimer's disease and senile dementia.

The risk of death after a heart attack is reduced by forty percent for those who used this product once a week. In addition, the risk of strokes and heart disease is reduced. Dried fish prevents the appearance of wrinkles. This is all due to the fact that it contains a large amount of nutrients, fats and vitamins that are well absorbed by the human body.

Fish harm occurs only when it is caught in dirty water bodies, and the drying process is also disturbed. It can also cause damage to health when the norms of its storage and transportation are violated. If all technological steps are followed, then dried fish will be absolutely harmless to humans. Thus, by regularly consuming dried fish, you can improve your health, as well as prevent the development of many diseases.

How to determine readiness?

It is best to determine the readiness of the fish by taste or by other criteria:

the fish shines through in the light;
has a dense and elastic texture;
has a greasy sheen;
there is no salt on the surface of the carcass;
skin or scales are strong, can be removed without difficulty;
has a rich, pungent, spicy aroma.

Dried fish is suitable for consumption immediately after drying. For final ripening, it should be left in a cool place for 3-4 weeks, wrapped in parchment paper or newspaper.

How and how much to dry fish on a battery?

In the cold period, when the heating season begins, it is convenient to dry salted fish using hot batteries. Usually, the readiness of the product with this method occurs after 4 to 8 days. There are several options for such drying:

under the battery - spread the carcasses on the floor on a double layer of paper or cardboard. When one side of the fish is dry, flip it over to the other.
on the battery - cover the radiator with a rag so as not to get dirty. Hang a bunch of fish on it like a Christmas tree garland. In a couple of days turn the other side
near the battery - hang the prepared fish on the clothes dryer and place it next to the battery

With this method, you need to ensure that the fish does not dry out. Otherwise, the meat will separate from the bone, and it will not turn out very tasty. If the batteries in your apartment are very hot, place the fish two feet away.

Dried carp

For salting, you can use regular salt, but not iodized. The best way- stone cooking (in large pieces). We recommend trying sea salt: it is more useful than usual.

There is a cooking method in which the fish is not peeled at all. They don't even gut it. We are not like that! The insides must be removed; gills are also best removed. Large fish must be cut additionally along the ridge.

To get rid of unpleasant mucus, dry the fish with paper towels.

Next, prepare brine - a warm saline solution. How can you determine the correct salt concentration? This can be done using raw potatoes or raw eggs. Put the salt in warm water until the potato (or egg) floats.

Dried fish is a tasty and healthy product. For cooking, fresh fish does not need to be heated; the ambient atmosphere is sufficient.

The meat of dried fish is dry and firm, it is not for nothing that it is often called dried. It is stored for a long time without requiring special conditions.

This is a great snack to be served with the set table or to take with you on your travels.

Dried fish is called fish, which, after preliminary salting, is dried in natural conditions.

Slow drying in the open air or in a well-ventilated area changes the properties of the fish and gives it a pungent, piquant taste. This process is also called drying.

Slow dehydration in combination with environmental influences leads to a gradual ripening of the meat:

Protein tissues are saturated with fat and become dense and elastic.
The pulp looks translucent and takes on a beautiful amber color.
Caviar turns into a particularly tasty grainy delicacy.

In general, the piquant taste and pungent spirit of dried fish is unique and easily recognizable. The silky skin with silvery scales is easy to remove and the salty strips of meat can be eaten.

What kind of fish can you dry at home?

Not every fish gives good result when drying and drying.

It is necessary to take such varieties, the meat of which is able to ripen correctly, acquiring a specific consistency and smell characteristic of a dried product.

Small breeds, which are considered of little value in industrial fishing, have excellent taste in dried form. These are vobla, ram, sabrefish, silver bream and other species related to the so-called chaschikovs. Of the larger ones, we recommend bream, pike perch, catfish.

Fresh fish, salted on the day of fishing, has the best quality. The catch, which was stored in an insufficiently cold place, may already be "smelly". Such "bear-like" drying is popular among northern peoples, but unusual people may not like this result.

Sometimes frozen and then thawed fish are dried. It is recommended to buy mackerel, herring, flounder, halibut. You can also freeze your own catch for subsequent drying.

Fish of medium and high fat content is the most delicious. Its quality is highly dependent on the season. Before spawning, the fat content is higher, so a catch taken in early spring or winter is recommended for drying.

Preparing fish for proper drying

The scales are never peeled off, and the smaller fish does not need to be gutted. Fat in the abdomen and viscera gives a more intense flavor.

In herbivorous species, the insides are taken out in the summer, since the contents of the stomach quickly deteriorate and give the abdomen bitterness.

We dry fish in the summer at home: the stages of preparation

The drying process is based on many years of experience and has a certain sequence of actions, which differ only in details.

Salting. Produced in any suitable container. The fish is sprinkled with salt or poured with saline and placed in the cold until it is salted.
Rinsing and soaking. Cold fresh water is used, the time depends on the duration of salting.
Drying directly. Occurs naturally or with the use of any devices.

Summer salting methods

In addition to salt and utensils suitable for food products, nothing is needed for salting. Any vessel of sufficient volume made of steel, glass or plastic will do. It is important to choose correct grade salt. Coarse, when dissolved, slowly picks up moisture from the fish, which is required before drying. Fine salt penetrates the meat too quickly and does not dehydrate.

Dry method

When drying large specimens weighing more than a kilogram, the best results are achieved by the dry salting method.

The fish carcass is freed from the entrails by cutting from the side of the back, and cleaned with a rag.
The internal cavities are salted abundantly, but without frills.
Carcasses are laid out in dense rows in a basket or box, the bottom of which is covered with a layer of fabric. They are laid according to the rule: head to tail and belly up.
Sprinkle with salt again, right on top of the scales. In total, you need to prepare about 1.5 kg of salt per 10 kg of fish.

Closing with a flat lid, the contents are pressed down with oppression - a stone or a jar of water.

Oppression helps to get rid of air bubbles that harbor harmful bacteria. Meat also compresses better under pressure.

Salting in a cool place takes 5 to 10 days. Gradually, juice begins to stand out, which flows through the cracks in the bottom. This is where the name "dry" technology comes from.

From small fish, which is also sometimes dry salted, the insides do not need to be removed. The cloth is spread out on a firm base and the fish are carefully laid on top of it, one by one. Sprinkle them with salt, wrap them with the same rag and press them down with a load. The fabric allows the resulting juice to pass through and allows it to flow out.

Wet way

The fish are closely placed in a saucepan or basin, after sprinkling the bottom with salt. They act according to the scheme: back to stomach and head to tail.
All layers are alternately sprinkled with salt, including the top one. Salt consumption is planned at the rate of 1 kg per 10 kg of fish.
Gourmets prefer a mixture of salt with a spoonful of sugar. It makes the taste of the product more exquisite.
The entire mass is pressed through the lid with oppression.

Brine begins to appear shortly after salting. After 1-2 days, it rises above the top layer and can even flow out of the container. While salting continues, the dishes are placed in the cellar. It is necessary to keep the temperature low, otherwise meat may deteriorate, which has not yet reached the salt.

In urban conditions, they use a refrigerator, and on a hike, a depression in the ground, covered with branches.

Smaller fish are salted quickly, 1-2 days are enough for them. Those that are larger will need a week. When the fish is ready, its meat seems to harden, and the back is attracted to the spine. If you pull on its head and tail, you can feel a crunch. If the test result is negative, it is left in the brine for another day. The remaining brine after the process can be poured out or used next time.

Tuzluchny way

Before starting brine salting, the fish is collected on twine using a needle. Ready-made drops are dipped in brine - brine, they must be completely covered with liquid. It is enough for small fish to lie down for 2-3 days. In the belly of large specimens, a salt solution is additionally pumped with a syringe.

To prepare a solution, 350 g of salt are diluted in a liter of water. You can add the brine left over from the previous salting or even from the purchased spicy salted herring.

It is believed that a raw egg does not sink in a properly prepared brine solution.

The speed of salting depends on the weight of the fish, its thickness, and the permeability of the skin. At room temperature 20 ° C, the approximate salting time:

with a weight of 2-3 kg one week;
with a weight of less than 500 grams, 2-3 days;
very small fish like tulka will be enough for one hour.

Readiness is determined in the same way as for the wet method. If the longitudinal stretching of the fish is silent, it means that the salt has not yet reached the vertebrae, so they do not creak. The meat of a well-salted fish does not resist pressing with a finger; if you press on the back, a hole remains.

The fish taken out of the brine is left to lie down, for large specimens it takes several hours. The salt inside will disperse evenly, and the result will be better.

Soaking in fresh water

Soaking is done after salting in order to desalinate the outer layers of the meat. Dried skin will not damp during storage. Therefore, this step should not be skipped, even if no excess salt is observed. Estimated time calculation: an hour of soaking for every day of salting.

The countdown of the soaking time begins already when the fish is washed from mucus and salt residues. You can wash it by hand or with a sponge, but gently.

The scales should not fly off; they protect the inner tissues.

The fish is placed in a large container of cold water, where after a while it floats to the surface. This means that the desired state has been achieved, and after drying it will be lightly salted and transparent amber.

Very long soaking of large, oily fish can spoil it. The outer layers are soaked from prolonged exposure to water. It is advised to take out the fish for the same period of time every few hours and then put it back.

Drying rules in different conditions

Experience shows that it is most convenient to dry the fish by stringing it onto a wire or cord. Low-fat varieties can be suspended by passing twine through the tail. On the contrary, bream or pike perch should be positioned upside down by pulling the needle and string through the eye opening. Then the tasty fat will not leak out of the abdomen. The fish is also dried on wire hooks or impaled on nails or thin rods.

On open air

Fish dried in good weather in the open air turns out to be the most delicious. A cool spring day with a temperature of 18-20 ° C can be considered ideal. Bottoms are hung in the open air on horizontal slats, in open boxes, etc.

It is desirable that the fish hang with their belly outward and do not move close to each other. Small varieties like tulka are dried on a horizontally stretched net.

In the hot sun, the fish can "cook" or start to deteriorate before it dries up. Also valuable fat will flow out of it. Therefore, it is better to hang the drop in the shade or under a canopy. In case of short-term rain, they can be hidden under an awning. If it becomes very cold and damp, it is better to move the catch indoors.

In a cool cellar

The cellar is often used as a cool place during salting. But small fish can be hung there after they have been removed from the brine. True, then you will have to dry it in a warmer place.

Large fish are dried slowly and in normal conditions may turn rancid before it is completely dry. Due to the low temperature in the cellar, the drying process there can take 2-3 weeks. The product obtained in this way is distinguished by its high taste.

On the balcony and loggia

Ventilated balconies can be adapted for drying if necessary, especially in rainy and cold weather. First, the fish is suspended so that the juice flowing out of it does not stain the floor, for example, above the basin. After that, it is hung along the walls of the loggia or the lower legs are stretched across.

It is better when the fish is dried in a draft, so the windows are slightly opened even in cold weather. If the temperature on the balcony is much higher when the windows are closed, then they do not need to be opened.

In the attic

A well-ventilated attic is an almost ideal place for drying. It heats up through the roof but stays cool thanks to the drafts. Bunches of fish are protected there both from direct rays of the sun and from rain. Also in the attic there is usually a lot of space under the roof for hanging ropes. You just need to raise them high enough so that the cats do not get it.

In the room

Many people do not like to dry fish in the room because of the inevitable smell, but sometimes there is simply no other way out. It may not be as fragrant as dried in the summer in the garden, but lovers are satisfied with its taste. Heating devices help drying out quite well.

To speed up the process, you can put a fan on the battery. Also, a small amount of fish can be attached over a gas stove.

In the oven

The fish is evenly distributed in parallel rows on the wire shelf. You can lay down the foil. The temperature regulator is set to no more than 80 ° C, otherwise the fish will simply be baked. The oven door for ventilation is left ajar 5-7 cm. After two hours, cover the heads with foil and leave the oven on for another 4-6 hours. The dried fish is hung up and dried to the final result for another one or two days.

In an electric dryer

Any electric dryer with a convective principle of operation, in which the heating is turned off, is suitable. The fish is kept in a dryer at temperatures up to 30 ° C. Otherwise, it is steamed and the meat begins to lag behind the bones.

The blowing of air from the fan provides drying, which lasts about two days. It will not be possible to escape the smell in the room, but the result will be quite acceptable dried fish.

How long does it take to dry and how to determine readiness?

The temperature and humidity of the air, as well as the size of the fish, affect how long it takes to dry the fish. The smallest fish have a chance to sink in a couple of days, but more often it takes about one or two weeks. A large one can dry for more than a month.

The fish does not need to be overdried; it is better not to overdry it just a little. The easiest way to determine readiness is to taste.

If the meat is still not dry enough, leave it hanging for another day.

Correctly and completely dried meat is translucent, it is dense and elastic, with a greasy sheen.
There are no salt crystals on the scales, the skin is strong and easy to remove.
Freshly dried fish has a specific pungent aroma that stimulates the appetite.

Dried fish can be eaten immediately after drying, but for full maturation, it must lie in the cold for 3-4 weeks, wrapped in a rag or parchment. After lying down, it will acquire its final full-fledged taste and aroma.

How to get rid of flies

The smell of dried fish quickly collects insects. Flies and wasps not only crawl on the skin with scales and feed on meat. Worst of all, flies lay their eggs in the still not dried fish, and instead of dried eggs, maggots may appear in its stomach.

In the spring, while the flies are not yet visible (or in the fall, when they are no longer there), you can safely dry the fish. The rest of the time it is recommended to hang it up in the evening, then by morning it dries up and the flies do not precipitate it so much. In an attempt to escape from flies, the drying places are covered with a net, the scales are smeared with oil, a weak solution of vinegar. Sometimes fish is hung outside, which has already been dried in a closed room.

How to dry fish in winter?

In winter, it is not possible to achieve the same quality as drying in summer. Correct maturation takes place in the open air at low humidity. In winter, it is too warm at home, the process is faster, and the meat does not have time to acquire transparency and amber shine.

Balconies, attics, kitchens and even living rooms are used for drying. The main problem with winter drying is the smell. He is omnipresent and sneaks everywhere. But there is no need to be afraid of an invasion of flies.

When drying in winter, it is better to use the dry method. The fish is salted, washed and hung up to drain in the bathroom, and then the bundles are placed in a convenient place.

You can, for example, hang it near a radiator or stove. But under the ceiling in the kitchen, the fish will also dry up in five days. It will not be possible to dry a large amount in this way, since there is simply nowhere to hang these fragrant garlands at home.

Is it possible to dry fish in frost?

For drying fish, a temperature above freezing is desirable. Severe frost destroys tissue.

But the process of freezing moisture also occurs at sub-zero temperatures.

The winter catch can be hung on the balcony or under a canopy. Although slowly, it will dry out, after which it will be necessary to dry the fish in the apartment. Thus, it is unlikely that it will be possible to obtain a high quality product, but for amateurs it turns out to be a completely acceptable delicacy.

When handling and storing the catch, experienced fishermen take into account the details to make the process easier and more efficient:

When salting, large specimens are placed on the bottom of the dish, and small ones on top.
Carcasses of the same size are strung on one cord. Then she will be ready at the same time.
To dry the house faster, the abdomens are opened by inserting toothpicks.
In winter, they make a frame box for hanging. Together with the frame, the fish can be moved from place to place.
Balyk can be prepared from large fat specimens by drying.
If the fish becomes damp due to improper storage and acquires a musty aftertaste, it can be washed in a weak salt solution and dried again.

Drying fish is a simple and effective process. Over time, experience is gained that allows you to make the most of the available conditions and opportunities. It is necessary to carefully monitor how the properties of the fish change during drying. Then you will get a delicious and aromatic delicacy that can be served both at the festive table and consumed at a warm friendly meeting.

In this video, an avid fisherman shares tips on how to properly dry fish.

Dried fish is a product created by Mother Nature and human ingenuity. A handful of salt, a raw carcass and favorable weather are all you need to get a delicious preparation. This technology will give fish meat a delicate taste and pleasant amber color, and a gastronomic gift with no expiration date for the consumer.

The essence of the process is slow drying under the influence of heat, light and air. Such a leisurely method leads to an even distribution of fat and even partially changes the composition of the product - it acquires a rich color and dense texture. Before drying the fish, salting should be done - the main stage of preparation.

Ingredients:

a fish;
salt - 150-250 g.

Preparation

Sort the carcasses. Gut the large one, and leave the small one in its original form.
Rinse, dry slightly and proceed with the salting.
For a mild taste, use 150 g of salt per 1 kg of pulp, if desired, increase the amount of the former.
Sprinkle with salt, lay the carcasses in layers in a convenient container.
Put the workpiece under oppression in the cold for 3 to 14 days, guided by the weight of the product.
String the carcasses on a string, passing the needle through the eye sockets.
Form bunches of 6 units, rinse and hang in a cool and ventilated place, covered with gauze.
Dried fish is cooked for no more than 14 days.

Dried fish in the oven

Dried fish - a recipe involving various drying techniques. The natural way of harvesting in open space is ideal for the out-of-town dwellers. The artificial method involves special industrial smokehouses. Simple and versatile tips will tell you how to properly dry fish, paying attention to the weight and type of product.

Ingredients:

a fish;
salt.

Preparation

If you are the owner of small fish, then cook it whole, large fish should be gutted.
Arrange the fish in layers, sprinkle thoroughly with salt and put under pressure.
After a short daily salting, rinse the carcasses, make cuts over the entire surface and secure them with toothpicks so that the fish is not steamed and ventilated.
Set the oven temperature to no higher than 40 degrees, turn on the convection and open the door.
Spread the product on a baking sheet previously lined with parchment and place in the oven for 7 hours.
The slightly open door provides ventilation of the workpiece, and the low temperature regime ensures uniformity.
Allow the dried fish to air for 24 hours and then take a sample.

Dried fish sabrefish

The inhabitant of the carp family is extremely demanded by fishermen and, therefore, is listed in the Red Book. Juicy meat, dense subcutaneous fat and optimal size make it an attractive product. Dried fish, the recipe for which has two options for salting, requires strict adherence to the preparatory stages.

Ingredients:

a fish;
water;
salt.

Preparation

When starting salting, choose a method in advance.
When dry, the product is placed in a wooden container and, abundantly sprinkled with salt, is placed under oppression.
Wet - assumes a brine for dried fish, at the rate of 1 kg of salt per 3 liters of water. After 5 days, check for readiness, rinse and do daily soaking, after which, dry and traditionally hang the workpiece in the right place.

Dried red fish at home is a great opportunity to pamper loved ones at any time of the year. You do not need to have fishing tackle to prepare a delicacy - the assortment of shops will do just fine. Use fatty fish like salmon and trout, and homemade fish will stay juicy and flavorful for a long time.

Ingredients:

trout;
salt.

Preparation

Large trout are gutted, their heads cut off and halved for convenience.
You can't do without preliminary salting, so the carcass is rubbed abundantly and, covered with a film, is placed in the refrigerator for two days.
Washed, dried and hung upside down for 5-10 days.
The readiness of dried fish is determined by taste preferences.

Experienced fishermen often come across a large catch. The most common small-sized river inhabitants - roach, goby and roach - are suitable for instant salting, and then for drying. Fresh fish does not require gutting, is quickly impregnated and is unpretentious in storage. Such an appetizer will harmoniously complement the foamy drink and diversify the menu.

Ingredients:

fresh roach or gobies;
salt.

Preparation

Wipe the fresh catch dry with a towel.
Pour salt on the bottom of a deep enamel dish and add the first layer.
Salt each row abundantly, then cover with a plate, place the load and put it in the cold.
After 3 days, hang the soaked product in a ventilated area.
Cooking dried fish is a process that requires a week of drying.

Dried fish in a vegetable dryer

The urban rhythm of life leaves no time for culinary delights, the multi-day drying technology is not relevant. A modern gadget will help you get a fish treat in a day. It is enough to decide on your favorite variety, marinate correctly, arrange in tiers and choose the temperature, invite guests to tasting.

Ingredients:

a fish;
salt.

Preparation

Before cooking dried fish in the dryer, marinate the pieces or the whole product for 8 hours according to the first stage of preparation.
Soak in cold water, drain and lay on the dryer racks.
Having chosen the optimal temperature of 59 degrees, cook for 24 hours.

For real lovers of fishing, severe frosts are not an obstacle, and not everyone can cope with the technology at subzero temperatures. The old Ural way of harvesting will help to use the winter degrees to your advantage and get an evenly cooked product.

Ingredients:

a fish;
salt.

Preparation

Before drying the fish in the winter, remove the dirt from the carcass without rinsing it.
Using large salt crystals, densely pour the fish and place under pressure for several days.
After drying, the fish is left hanging in the cold for 7 days.
Dried fish in the cold is the most delicious delicacy. The frosty air draws in moisture and speeds up the cooking process. A weekly carcass can be safely sent for storage.

Storage of blanks is an important point that allows you to protect not only the prepared product, but also the health of the consumer from damage. Being a perishable product, aquatic inhabitants are especially susceptible to the influence of bacteria, and as a result - to decay. Simple and affordable rules will help to increase the shelf life up to six months without losing taste and quality.

Before at home, inspect it and check the smell. Wrap the finished quality stock immediately in paper and place in the freezer.
Storage in paper is one of the most affordable options.
A tightly closed can is recognized as the highest quality method, and the presence of a cool and dry space makes it possible to store it in cardboard boxes, baskets or cloth bags.

You can easily get dried fish in many stores, but true lovers prefer to cook such a delicacy on their own. After all, only by preparing a dish with your own hands, you can be completely sure of its safety. But to make the fish tasty, you should know some rules and secrets of its preparation.

What kind of fish can you dry

Usually, fishermen who bring home their catch set aside small or medium-sized fish for drying or drying. Large representatives are rarely used for these purposes, since they were originally intended for frying or baking. But this does not mean that large fish cannot be wilted.

It just takes a little more time to prepare it. In the fisherman's language, fish drying is called "making a taranka." But this does not mean at all that only a ram is suitable for preparing a delicacy.

What types of fish can be dried:

Some craftsmen dry even such fatty and difficult to dry fish like catfish and burbot. Gourmets assure that the fatter the finished product, the tastier it is.

You can dry any fish, but it is important to take into account that each species has its own differences in taste:

It must be remembered that fatty fish is dried for a long time, and in the future it is poorly and not stored for long. During storage, it can acquire an unpleasant taste and smell of rancid fat. Fatty varieties can be dried, but in small quantities, and for long-term storage, it is preferable to choose a leaner breed for drying.

Training

Experts advise to shift the freshly caught fish (intended for drying) with the leaves and stalks of old nettles and place in a cool place for a couple of hours, and only after that start salting it. Nettles will keep fish from spoiling on a hot day.

In winter

A small carcass of fish (up to 500 g) can be salted without gutting.
This is done so that the fish meat is saturated with subcutaneous and internal fat and is juicier. In fish carcasses weighing over 500 grams, the abdominal cavity is cleared from the viscera, if the fish was with caviar, then the caviar is put back into the abdomen.

Summer

In the summer, all fish (large and small) are gutted, since in the hot season all fish livestock feeds on algae. Aquatic greens are even included in the diet of predatory fish species.

If fresh caught prey does not clear the abdominal cavity of algae, then it begins to actively decompose within several hours, which will make the meat rancid and unsuitable for human consumption.

warm salting at a temperature of + 15 ° C ... + 16 ° C - from 9 days;
cold salting at a temperature of + 5 ° C ... + 6 ° C - from 13 days;
dry ambassador (not gutted) - from 13 days;
dry ambassador (gutted) - from 12 days.

How to dry in stages

Briefly, the drying process can be described as follows:

salting;
soaking;
drying.

Salting

Finely ground salt such as "Extra" is not entirely suitable for these purposes, it is better to take very coarse salt.
The consequences of salting with fine salt is the possible formation of a thin crust on the fish carcass, which prevents the penetration of the salt brine inside. There are two ways of salting fish: dry salting and using brine.

Salting in brine:

You can take any container of a suitable size (food plastic, metal), the main thing is that its wall does not oxidize. For these purposes, galvanized containers and technical plastic are not at all suitable.
Prepared carcasses are tightly placed in a container, if necessary, then in several rows.
On top of the last row, a lid is laid on which the oppression is installed.
After that, brine is carefully poured over the oppression, which flows into the container. Tuzluk is poured until it covers the lid lying on top of the fish by a few centimeters.

When salting, oppression is almost always placed on top, it is needed to compact the fish in the brine and prevent the appearance of air chambers in which putrefactive bacteria can develop.

Video: salting fish in brine It can be picked up from available tools, or it can be made of wood. Wooden oppression will serve the fisherman for many years. It is recommended to choose for these purposes a tree that does not emit tannins or resin (aspen, linden).

Brine preparation:

One and a half cups (250 ml) of coarse salt is added to 3 liters of water.
If you need more brine, the proportions are increased.
The salt is completely dissolved in water and only after that the fish laid under the oppression is poured with the prepared brine.
Some lovers add sugar to brine, claiming that this makes the meat taste more tender. In this case, one tablespoon of sugar is added for every kilogram of salt.

If it becomes necessary to salt the fish right on the fishing trip, then you can use polyethylene bags. To do this, dig a hole in the bushes (not in a sunny place) and place a dense bag there, in which the catch will be salted.
The neck of the bag is rolled up and left open. Oppression is placed on top of salted fish and poured with brine.

Dry Ambassador:

In this case, you can salt the fish in baskets, wooden boxes or any container, at the bottom of which there are holes for the drain of excess liquid.
The bottom of the container (basket, box) is covered with a cloth. For this, clean burlap or cotton is suitable.
During the salting process, the fish will release liquid, which will drain into the slots and openings of the salting container.

Did you know?Experienced fishermen in field conditions salted fish directly in sacks. After they were buried in the ground to a depth of one meter. The fish was safely salted, and the earthly cold did not allow it to deteriorate.

Soaking

According to the recipes, soaking should take about 12 hours. Experts are sure that you need to soak the salted catch as much as it was in the brine. For example, if the carcass was salted for three days, then it should also be in clean, cold water for at least three days. It is advisable to change the water every 5-6 hours of soaking.

Drying

The technology of the drying process requires hanging the carcass for drying after soaking. Until now, disputes do not subside, in which experts in the process defend their opinion on how to properly hang the fish.

There are two hanging methods:

What to hang on and where to dry

For hanging, use a thin rope made of natural materials (in two or three weaves) or stainless steel wire. The future dried dried fruit is suspended through the eye holes so that it does not come into contact with each other during drying. In this way, you can dry up to five carcasses on one piece of cord.

Such garlands from a taranka are hung in a draft in a slightly shaded place. Some fishermen prefer to hang the future dried dried fruit in the sun for 3-5 hours to dry it, after which they move a shady and windy place. It is the wind that helps dry the carcasses faster. Under good weather conditions, three or five days are sufficient for complete drying.

If the weather is not suitable (cold and humid), then the stomach is cut open for large fish and several transverse sticks are inserted into it. The attic (with open through windows) is perfect as a place for drying fish. The most suitable temperature for drying fish is + 18C ... + 20C.
You can hang fish for drying at different times, this is already a matter of taste:

Some people prefer to hang it up at night, arguing that the top layer of fish skin that has dried out at night will less attract flies with its smell.
Others dry only during the day, in good weather, hiding the "drying" in the room for the night. They explain it there, that when the day and night temperature drops, the taranka damp, and subsequently loses its taste.
Still others, on the contrary, try to guess the beginning of drying precisely for damp and rainy weather, claiming that although this fish dries longer, it is juicier and tastier.

Fly control

There are several ways to control insects during drying:

Did you know? The largest fish in the world is the giant whale shark, which can grow almost the length of two school buses. It has more than four thousand tiny (3 mm) teeth, weighs about 25 tons and feeds mainly on plankton.

Video: fighting flies when drying fish

How to dry in winter

It is necessary to fire fish in winter using the same technology as in summer. The only difficulty lies in the drying process. In winter, the fish also dries up, but it will take a little longer for it to be fully cooked than in summer.

For listening, the carcasses are hung on a warm loggia or a glazed balcony. To create a slight draft, the balcony windows and vents are slightly opened. You can dry it in the room, if the owners are willing to tolerate a rather specific smell.

Important!In no case should fish be dried in winter using heaters installed nearby or near a battery.... What will happen as a result of this« jerky» practically not edible.

How to dry fish in the oven

According to this recipe, you can prepare a jerky delicacy from any (not too large) carcass. For this, capelin, perch, crucian carp, small carp or small silver carp are suitable. For cooking, use the oven and food foil.

Ingredients:

a fish;

Training:

The catch is gutted and washed, and then dried with a kitchen paper towel.
The inside and outside of the carcass is rubbed well with salt, black pepper and chopped bay leaves.
The fish is placed under oppression and left for 48 hours for salting.
After two days, the salted carcasses are washed, soaked for two to three hours in clean water and wiped dry with napkins or paper towels.

Video: drying fish in the oven Preparation:

Preheat the oven to + 40C.
Dry (pre-salted and soaked) fish is placed in one row on a baking sheet covered with food foil. The heads of the carcasses placed on the baking sheet should be directed to one side.
The baking sheet is placed in the oven. The oven door remains ajar 5-10 cm.
Thus, the fish is dried within 2 hours. The temperature in the oven is maintained at + 40C. After the required time has elapsed, remove the baking sheet from the oven and cover the fish heads with foil.
The baking sheet is placed back in the oven for another 3-4 hours.
After that, the already well-dried carcasses are taken out and strung on a rope or wire.
The resulting kukan is hung out to dry in fresh air. The place is chosen cool and windy.
After two to three days, the dried fish is ready from the oven.

The secrets of perfect cooking:

For drying in the oven, it is better to take non-fatty fish (ram, roach or crucian carp).
If you need to dry large carcasses, then an incision is made along the back to the ridge (this will facilitate and speed up the process).
In order not to bother with threading the ropes through the eye holes, use a paper clip (making a hook out of it).
For long-term storage, dried fish is greased with olive oil before packing in foil or polyethylene.

Did you know? In Japan, puffer fish is a popular but deadly dish. Its insides contain a deadly poison - tetrodotoxin. To be eligible to prepare a puffer dish, a chef must obtain a certificate from a special school that teaches how to cook this poisonous fish.

How to determine readiness

Before use, the product must be checked for readiness and quality:

If the drying process is completed, then the structure of the meat becomes translucent, salt is not visible on the surface of the carcass.
If the ram is clearly dry, the situation can be corrected by placing the fish in a wet canvas, wrapping it up and sending it to a cellar or refrigerator overnight. In the morning, the dried meat will be softer and more elastic.
The finished fish is bent in half (head to tail). If the ram returns to its original state and is springy, then it is ready for use.

Important!In order for dried fish to acquire the best taste, it needsinfuse... Therefore, the product removed from drying is placed for ripening (2-3 weeks). To do this, choose a cool place with drafts (for better ventilation).

Dried fish at home recipe

Dried carp (dry salted)

It is almost impossible to oversalt carp in this way, since it collects just as much salt as needed. During the soaking process, the water will draw out any excess salt. If for some reason the fish was not taken out of the brine within 3 days, it's okay, but it will take a little longer to soak it in clean water (about a day).

Dry ram (salt in brine) We take a ram of medium size, but weighing no less than half a kilogram. For smaller fish, dry salting is suitable.

Making a strong brine:

On the three-liter jar cold water add 150-180 g of salt. The solution is stirred until the salt is completely dissolved in water.
The strength of the brine is checked using a raw egg; in a suitable brine, the egg does not sink, but floats on the surface.

Salting:

Soaking and drying the ram:

In the finished ram, the meat acquires an amber color and becomes slightly transparent.

Dried pike (dry salted):

The pike is washed (in winter without gutting), 2-3 cross-sections are made on both sides of the carcass.
A container with a suitable bottom is taken (the pike should completely lie down on the bottom).
Salt is poured onto the bottom of the pickling container (the layer must be at least 0.5 cm thick).
A pike is placed on the salt layer and sprinkled with salt generously on top.
If there are several fish, then they are stacked on top of each other, each time sprinkling with salt.
On top of the upper pike, the last layer of salt is poured and a lid with oppression is laid.
If a large pike is salted, then the container is placed in a cool place for 48 hours. If the fish is small, 24 hours is enough.
The salted pike is washed and hung out in a draft to dry until tender.

Important!When drying pike, the most important thing is not to miss the moment when it is ready. If you miss a little, then instead of juicy jerky, you will get an overdried product. Dried pike is an excellent beer snack.

Storage

Experienced fishermen claim that as it is stored, dried fish matures and only gets better.

Where to store:

Hanging in a cold and airy place, in a natural fabric bag.
Placed in a basket of willow branches with a lid. This basket should be placed in a draft in a shady and cool place (not in the sun).
In the kitchen cabinet - securely and tightly wrapped in plastic, parchment, food foil or film.

There is nothing difficult in cooking dried fish; both experienced fishermen and beginners can easily cope with this. It is safe to say that even beginners will succeed in jerky fish the first time. You can always treat your family and friends with this delicacy, because cooked with your own hands, it will be much tastier than purchased one.

Dried fish is easy to cook at home, there are many excellent ways to salting this product. As a result, complex physical and biochemical processes take place in meat. After such processing, the fish (you can take sea or river) acquires a peculiar taste. Pay attention to the original, proven recipes, according to which the product is salted, dried at home.

How to cook dried fish

It is advisable to use glassware with enamel. Pottery, ceramic, porcelain, glass, wooden, titanium containers are suitable. Choose the right salt. Try not to buy an iodized product. As a rule, it spoils the appearance and taste of the delicacy. Use coarse salt. It is worth determining the required amount of the product by placing a raw egg in the liquid - it should float on the surface of the water. If it doesn't, then it may be worth adding more salt or stirring the liquid thoroughly.

How to salt fish for drying

How to dry properly

How to dry fish in winter

How to dry fish in the oven

Dried fish recipes

Many housewives are interested in how to prepare a delicacy quickly and as simply as possible. Often dried fish is made from roach, sprat, sardine, pike perch, bream, anchovy, rudd, perch, ide, pink salmon, trout, roach, carp (pay attention to the beautiful photos of ready-made delicacies). If the carcasses are small, then they do not need to be gutted. In large fish, the entrails are removed, and the milk, caviar are left, the backs are cut.

Carp

Time: 3 weeks.
Calorie content (100 g): 184 kcal.
Purpose: appetizer.
Cuisine: Russian.
Difficulty: easy.

Ingredients:

carp (take small fish) - 1 kg;
vegetable oil - 50 g;
salt - 200 g.

Cooking method:

Remove scales, heads, tails, entrails.
Fill the carcasses with a solution of salt with the addition of oil, leave for 10 days.
Hang the meat in a ventilated place, let it dry for 2 weeks.

Vobla

Time: 3 weeks.
Servings Per Container: 8 Persons.
Calorie content (100 g): 235 kcal.
Purpose: appetizer.
Cuisine: Russian.
Difficulty: easy.

Ingredients:

vobla - 1 kg;
salt - 100-200 g.

Cooking method:

Peel the carcasses, pickle. If you are going to rub the vobla with salt, then after 10 days it must be rinsed in running water. After using brine, the carcasses are placed in water for 2 hours. The soaking time depends on the salting period.
Hang the vobla to wither. Remember that the natural drying time depends on the size of the roach. The finished delicacy should have a tight back.

Pink salmon

Time: 2 days.
Servings: 8-10 people.
Calorie content (100 g): 182 kcal.
Purpose: appetizer.
Cuisine: Russian.
Difficulty: easy.

Ingredients:

pink salmon - 1.5 kg;
salt - 3 tbsp. l;
sugar - 1 tbsp. l .;
spices - optional.

Cooking method:

Defrost, rinse, cut the carcasses into plates.
Combine salt, sugar, spices. Sprinkle the mixture over the meat, stir. Leave everything for a day.
Spread the pink salmon on a baking sheet, put in the oven, in which the temperature is set to 40 degrees, for 4-6 hours. The oven door must be open.
The finished delicacy is cooled in the refrigerator, then served on the table.

Zander

Time: 12 days.
Calorie content of the dish (100 g): 84 kcal.
Purpose: appetizer.
Cuisine: Russian.
Difficulty: easy.

Ingredients:

pike perch - 1.5 kg;
horseradish (leaves) - 400 g;
salt - 200 g;
milk or kvass - 200 ml;
vinegar (9%) - 200 ml;

Cooking method:

Peel, rinse, cut the pike perch into layers. Rub it with vinegar, salt. In addition, fish carcasses can be poured with a solution of vinegar and water, wait 2 hours.
Chop horseradish, mix it with chopped parsley, dill, spices.
At the bottom of the container, spread the salt in a layer of 1 cm. Lay out the carcasses. Sprinkle each layer of fish with salt, a mixture of spices and herbs. Wait 2 days. The salting period depends on the size of the carcasses.
Soak the meat in water with milk or kvass for 2 hours.
Dry the pike perch, hang to dry, wait 10 days. The drying time depends on the size of the pike perch.

Ide

Time: 15 days.
Servings Per Container: 10 Persons.
Calorie content of the dish (100 g): 117 kcal.
Purpose: appetizer.
Cuisine: Russian.
Difficulty: easy.

Ingredients:

medium-sized ides - 20 pcs.;
laurel leaves - 6 pcs.;
salt - 2 kg;

Cooking method:

Peel, rinse the ide.
Use a dry salting method: salt, 2 laurel leaves, spices, chopped herbs are distributed on each layer of fish.
Everything is covered with a polyethylene sheet. Oppression is being laid.
After 5 days, ides are soaked for about 1 hour.
Yazi are suspended from a rope. Drying takes about 10 days. If this period is increased, then you will receive dried fish.

Bream

Time: 2 weeks.
Servings Per Container: 15-20 Persons.
Calorie content of the dish (100 g): 221 kcal.
Purpose: lunch, afternoon tea, dinner.
Cuisine: Russian.
Difficulty: easy.

Ingredients:

medium-sized bream - 20 pcs.;
coarse salt - 200 g;
dill, parsley, spices - optional.

Cooking method:

Gut, rinse with bream. Rub them inside with salt.
Pour about 5 tbsp into the bottom of the dish. l. salt. Lay the bream on top, sprinkle with salt, chopped herbs, spices. Press down with something heavy and put in a dark, cool place for a week.
Soak the salted carcasses in water for about 1 hour.
Use cold dry for bream. Place the fillets, for example, on the balcony, dry for 7 days.
Dried fish is packed in wooden boxes, stored for 10 months in a cool place.

Blue whiting

Time: 4 days.
Servings Per Container: 8 Persons.
Calorie content of the dish (100 g): 255 kcal.
Purpose: appetizer.
Cuisine: Russian.
Difficulty: easy.

If your family members love to eat fish in different forms, then try this simple recipe. You will need blue whiting for him. It is worth using the wet salting method. Drying is done in the oven or outside. In the second case, relatively more time is spent on cooking. Keep in mind that blue whiting lasts 5 hours in the oven, and about a week outside.

Ingredients:

medium-sized blue whiting - 1 kg;
water - 1 l;
coarse salt - 4 tbsp. l .;
sugar - 2 tbsp. l .;
black peppercorns, laurel leaves - optional.

Cooking method:

Peel the blue whiting.
Bring water to a boil. Add salt, sugar, pepper, lavrushka. Based on the brine made, determine the taste of the delicacy. Cool the mixture, pour the blue whiting into it. Wait 3 days.
Rinse the blue whiting, place on a baking sheet, put in the oven (set to 40 degrees) for 5 hours. Leave the oven door open.

Trout

Time: 3 days.
Servings Per Container: 10 Persons.
Calorie content (100 g): 186 kcal.
Purpose: appetizer.
Cuisine: Russian.
Difficulty: easy.

This red fish, which belongs to the salmon family, can be used to make an original delicacy. Often he is prepared for some important event: for the New Year, a wedding. All kinds of salads and savory snacks are made with the addition of trout. In addition, it is delicious to use it simply with bread: make beautiful sandwiches, canapes. The most important thing to create a delicacy is to purchase a quality fillet. It is desirable that it be chilled.

Ingredients:

medium-sized trout - 1 kg;
salt - 4 tbsp. l .;
sugar - 2 tbsp. l .;
lemon juice - 2 tbsp. l .;
black pepper - optional.

Cooking method:

Cut the fillets. The size of the pieces should be about 10 cm. Rub them with lemon juice, pepper, sugar. The pieces are placed in a container between the layers of salt, pressed from above with something heavy. Refrigerate the trout for 2 days.
Dry salted trout in the oven with the door open for 4-5 hours. Determine its readiness by the backs. They must be dry.
The salted fish is cut into thin slices before serving. When doing this, aim the knife at an acute angle.

Roach

Time: 15 days.
Servings Per Container: 8-10 Persons.
Calorie content of the dish (100 g): 148 kcal.
Purpose: appetizer.
Cuisine: Russian.
Difficulty: easy.

The appetizer tastes like a dried ram or roach. It is well served with light or dark beer. The best time to cook roach is in the spring. At this time, she still does not have time to be saturated with the smell of mud. In the spring, the roach goes for spawning, therefore it has a good fat content. The delicacy turns out to be tender and nutritious (make sure of its uniqueness from the photo).

Ingredients:

roach - 1 kg;
coarse salt - 100 g.

Cooking method:

Peel the roach, remove the scales. Rub the inside and outside of the carcasses with salt.
Pour 1 cm of salt on the bottom of the container. Lay down the roach. Store the dishes in a cool place for 5 days.
Soak the roach for about 3 hours.
Hang the carcasses on a rope on a well-ventilated balcony or street out of the sun. Drying is carried out for 10 days.

Video

Any self-respecting fisherman cannot imagine his life without dried fish. She is considered a kind of trophy, because she is not only caught independently, but also fish at home? This process requires special skill.

How to dry fish properly

To prevent a fly or other insects from landing? To do this, it is necessary to make its correct preparation before this process:

It is necessary to salt the fish until it becomes transparent.
When soaking a salted product, it is recommended to add 50 to 150 grams of vinegar to the water (this substance repels flies, however, it is not always effective).
For drying, it is best to take a not very large fish, since it dries out faster, and various insects are not so willing to sit on an already almost finished fish.
If you nevertheless decide to take large prey for drying, then it is recommended to remove all intestines from it and remove the gills.

By following this plan, you will slightly increase the chances that the flies will not land on the fish, but you will not be able to get rid of them 100%.

After that, the product is hung out in the open air and dried for a week, up to ten days.

How to dry fish at home?

Not every fisherman has a special place for drying fish. Accordingly, not everyone knows how to dry fish at home.

To do this efficiently, you need to stock up on seasonings such as bay leaf, salt and black ground pepper... In addition, you need to prepare thick foil and oven.

So, how to properly dry fish at home? After preparing all the above things, you need to follow this plan:

The fish must be rinsed, dried with a paper napkin, removed all the intestines, and then made cuts on it. After completing these steps, the product is sprinkled with salt and pepper and placed under pressure. Further, the fish must be thoroughly rinsed from salt under running water and dried.
After drying all the fish, you need to preheat the oven and place the foil on the baking sheet. All the prey is laid out on it, be sure to make sure that the heads are turned in one direction. During the drying process, the oven door should be slightly opened by about 50-70 millimeters. The temperature should be no more than 50 degrees. After two hours, the heads of the fish are covered with foil, and the foil itself continues to dry for three or four hours.
Then the product is taken out of the oven, strung on an iron wire or thread, and then hung in the fresh air, in the apartment - it can be a balcony. It is dried there for at least two days.

In winter, after removing it from the oven, the fish can be hung on a rope or wire above the stove.

What is a hanging fish dryer and what is it for?

Drying fish on a rope or wire is a fairly simple and traditional method, but it does not eliminate flies from spoiling the product. But a suspended fish dryer is able to protect it from this harmful influence.

Hanging dryer is presented in the form of walls made of gauze or mesh. Such "walls" allow air to pass through and do not slow down the drying process of the fish. As a rule, a suspension device is placed inside such dryers, which consists of rails with guy wires and chains. Hooks for hanging fish are attached to these chains; when buying such a dryer, they are included.

To install this type of dryer, you just need to stretch the stretch on the neighboring trees or just drive in the stakes. If the fish is dried in an apartment, then you can purchase a special frame or build it yourself.

We dry fish in the summer

How to dry fish in summer? This process in the warm season almost does not differ from its drying in winter. The only difference is that in summer the product can be taken out on the balcony or (in a private house) outside. In winter, it is necessary to dry the fish over the stove, having previously done the above procedure using the oven.

Summer drying of fish is most often practiced, since winter fishing is not as popular as in the warm season.

We dry fish on the balcony

For residents of apartments, the process of drying up river production is a little more complicated, since there is not so much open air. How to dry fish on the balcony? You need to do the following:

The fish must be thoroughly rinsed and the intestines removed. In no case should the scales be removed, as this will attract flies and contribute to the prey drying out too quickly (this may affect its further taste).
On the back of each fish, it is necessary to make a shallow but long cut, approximately from head to tail.
Further, the product is salted in a bowl. It is best to choose enameled containers, and coarse salt. The latter is taken with the calculation of 20% of the mass of the weight of the entire fish. If you feel like it, you can add bay leaf and black pepper to the salt.
The fish is transferred to another container in layers, each layer is carefully covered with salt. You also need to grate the product inside.
Oppression is placed on top of the fish and all this is placed in a cool place for several days. The use of a refrigerator is recommended.
After salting, the fish must be washed and dried.
Further, it is hung out on the balcony (thread or wire is used). How to dry fish so that the fly does not sit down? It is best to treat each one with 3 percent vinegar.

The fish is dried in about a week.

How to dry fish with intestines?

To dry the fish with intestines or not is a matter of taste. It is worth noting that if the product has been dried along with the insides, then a certain bitterness may be observed in its taste, which not everyone likes.

Drying fish with intestines is the same as all the above methods, the only difference is that you do not need to remove all the contents of its belly.

On the one hand, removing the entrails of fish is a very difficult matter, but if the fisherman does not want to get a dried product with a bitter taste, then it is better not to evade this business.

What is a fish drying box?

How to dry fish so that the fly does not sit down? For this purpose, the optimal solution would be to use a fish drying box.

You can buy it or make it yourself. Creating a box with your own hands will cost about half the price.

The optimal size of the frame for the fish drying box is 1 * 1.10 meters, the depth is 0.5 meters. The most suitable material is wood (its species does not matter).

To create such a box, you need to do the following:

Mark the timber and cut it with an electric jigsaw. Then, using a screwdriver, corners and screws, assemble the frame.
Stiffening ribs are attached on all sides.
A cable is attached to the side walls (fish drying is carried out on it).
Then you need to process the box with insect repellent.
It should be absorbed and dry, and after that the box is opened with varnish. It must be applied in two layers at intervals of 4 hours.
At the bottom of the box, you need to install special spacing.
The base of the door must be glued with a seal.

After completing these steps, you will receive a ready-made box for drying fish, where no insects can penetrate.

The reader already knows how to dry the fish so that the fly does not land. Now is the time to talk about how to store it properly.

There are some tips to help you keep your dried fish for as long as possible:

before you put the fish in a bag for further storage, you need to wipe it thoroughly and put sprigs of coniferous wood in the belly; in its absence, ordinary paper will do;
in the hot season, it is recommended to lay nettles on top of the dried fish, this will increase its shelf life several times.

Here we told you how to dry fish at home. By fulfilling all the requirements, you will receive a high-quality and tasty product... Bon Appetit!

The drying process is the drying of pre-salted fish

Drying is considered one of the most effective ways to prepare fish for long-term storage. The method itself is quite simple: fresh product is salted and then dried in the open air. Nevertheless, the process can take place with so many variations that in order to understand all its subtleties, it is worth not only familiarizing yourself with the special literature, but also watching several relevant videos.

Today we decided to give readers a general idea of how to properly dry fish at home.

Selection and preparation of raw materials

How to dry fish: salt, soak and dry

Now you can start the main process, which is divided into three stages: salting, soaking and actually drying.

Basic rules for drying

When salting fish, it is important to follow several rules:

The utensils in which you place the raw materials must be steel, enamelled, glass, ceramic, wood, or made of food grade plastic. The use of galvanized containers is unacceptable;
for fish processing, choose a coarse salt that does not contain iodine. Iodized salt gives the product an unpleasant aftertaste, and fine salt penetrates the tissues too quickly, preventing them from dehydrating;
the container in which the fish is salted must be kept in a cool place;
in no case should the recommended salting time be reduced. It depends both on the method and on the size of the raw material, but it cannot be less than a day for small fish and 5 days for larger specimens. Violation of this condition is fraught with serious health problems (for example, infection with opisthorchiasis or poisoning).

These are general principles. There are many methods of salting fish, and almost every experienced fisherman adds his own nuances to them.

There are many methods of salting fish, and almost every experienced fisherman adds his own nuances to them.

Drying stages

We start to dry the fish: salting recipes

Dry

Fish (usually large) are placed in a wooden or plastic box covered with cloth in layers, belly up. You can also use a basket or even a clean bag (jute or plastic). It is important that the container has holes through which the juice escaping from the fish will flow. The raw materials are sprinkled with salt from all sides (the heads must be treated especially carefully). For 10 kg of fish, take at least 1.5 kg of salt. The container is covered with a flat lid, oppression is placed (for example, a three- or five-liter jar of water) and put away in a cool place. Salting usually takes 5 to 10 days.

Tuzluchny

The fish, tightly packed in a bowl or pan, with their tummies up, are sprinkled with salt layer by layer (1 kg per 10 kg of raw material) and pressed with oppression. In this case, the brine (brine) that is released from the fish remains in the container. After 1-2 days, it rises above the raw material. After that, the container is left in a cool place until the fish is salted, that is, for at least another day for small specimens and for a week for large specimens.

Wet

Prepared and placed in a container, fish is poured with a cold solution prepared from coarse salt and water (about 350 g per 1 liter). The suitability of the brine can be checked: fresh egg immersed in liquid must remain on the surface. Small fish are kept in a salt solution for 2-3 days, and large fish for about a week. After the product is taken out of the brine, it should lie in the air for 1-2 hours so that the salt evenly "disperses" through the tissues.

"Hanging"

As a variant of wet salting, the so-called sagging is used. In this case, small fish are strung on rods, a cord or fishing line through the eye holes and lowered into the brine so that they do not press on each other. In medium (gutted) specimens, the abdominal cavity is pre-filled with a strong salt solution, pumping it through the mouth opening with a syringe so that the pulp is salted more reliably and evenly.

In addition, there are varieties of dry and brine saline, in which sugar, dill or spices (ground pepper, bay leaves, coriander and even cinnamon) are added to the salt, which is poured over the fish. If you dry fish processed in such a way, you get products that have a particularly refined, "spicy" or "balyk" taste.

The readiness of the fish for the next stage is determined as follows: the carcass is taken by the head and tail and stretched in the longitudinal direction. In a well-salted fish, the spine "crunches" at the same time, emitting a specific sound. You can press your finger on the back of the fish: with proper salting, a hole will remain on it.

Soaking fish

Before you dry the fish, you need to soak it. This is done in order to remove salt from the subcutaneous layer of the pulp. If you skip this step, the skin will not dry properly. In this case, the surface of the finished product will become damp, and the fish simply cannot be stored.

The easiest way is to soak the raw material under the tap, while simultaneously washing it of the remaining mucus. The washed fish are placed in a bowl of cold water. If they do not sink, then the pulp already contains the amount of salt that is optimal for drying. The total period of washing and soaking should not exceed 1 hour for each day of preliminary salting. Large, oily fish should not be kept in water continuously for 7-10 hours in order not to reduce the taste of the final product. Every 2-3 hours it is taken out and kept in air for some time, and then soaking is continued.

We bring to your attention a video in which a fisherman tells how he soaks a fish.

Drying (at what temperature to dry the fish)

The fermentation that fish tissues undergo during drying takes place in the absence of heat treatment. That is why the final stage (drying of salted raw materials) should take place at a temperature not exceeding 18-20 ℃ and constant ventilation. It is best to do this in spring or autumn. In this case, the fish does not overheat in the sun.

To protect against flies that can spoil the product, they use a variety of means: cover the fish with gauze, spray it with vinegar, sometimes even coat it with a mixture of vinegar and vegetable oil. Experienced fishermen hang out the catch to dry in the evening. At this time, there are almost no flies, and overnight the surface layer of the raw material hardens, and insects can no longer damage it.

The final stage of drying (drying salted fish) should take place at a temperature no higher than 18-20 ℃ and constant ventilation

You can dry the fish in winter. Connoisseurs appreciate the product obtained by freezing moisture. At temperatures close to 0 ℃, the fish dries for a long time, and its taste differs from that which is typical for spring, summer and autumn catches.

Where to dry the fish?

The product with the best taste is obtained when fish, strung on short lines or wires in several pieces, are dried in the open air. An open veranda, a well-ventilated barn or an attic, a balcony or a loggia of a city apartment are suitable for placing low ones. Dried fish can be hung in the room, but then the residents will be bothered by its smell.

An open veranda, a well-ventilated barn or an attic, a balcony or a loggia of a city apartment are suitable for placing fish for drying.

Some fishermen design dryers in the form of boxes, the sides of which are made of thick window mesh to keep out flies. Low with fish string inside the drawer. The device is convenient in that it is easy to carry it from the yard to the house and back when the weather changes. The owners of summer cottages and country houses often dry fish in cool cellars. At the same time, the raw material dries out very slowly (from 2-3 weeks to a month), and the gradual fermentation has a beneficial effect on the taste of the finished product. In the open air, small fish completely wilt in 1-2 days, and large fish reach readiness in an average of 1.5-2 weeks.

Some craft fishermen design dryers in the form of boxes, the sides of which are made of thick window mesh to keep out flies.

Drying with household appliances

Separately, it is worth talking about the methods of drying fish using household appliances. You can dry pre-salted raw materials as follows:

in the oven. The fish is laid out in one layer on a wire rack. They dry it at a temperature of 80 ℃ and the door ajar or the convection mode turned on. Two hours after the start of processing, the heads are wrapped in foil and the product is heated for another 5-6 hours. The fish turns out to be soft, and you have to bring it to readiness, hanging it in the room for a few more days;
in an electric dryer. Only a device in which you can set the temperature to 30 ℃ and powerful airflow will do. The process takes at least two days;
over the stove. A small amount of fish can be hung from the kitchen ceiling. If there is a household hood, it will be constantly blown with air and will dry out in 4-5 days.

It should be noted that drying fish with household appliances is not the best way. In this case, it reaches readiness too quickly, which negatively affects the taste and smell.

There is an opinion that fish can be not only dried, but also dried-smoked. This is not true. Drying and smoking are fundamentally different processes, both in the sense of changes to which the fabrics of raw materials are subjected, and in terms of the consumer qualities of the finished product. Perhaps the reason for the misconception was the similarity of the stages of pretreatment of fish (salting and steeping), which are necessary to prepare for both drying and cold smoking. There is no separate product called "dried-smoked fish".

Assessment of the quality of the finished product; storage

(15 Votes)

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Those who have read the bible of the Russian amateur fisherman, that is, "Works on Fishing" written by L. P. Sabaneev, remember that the author often gives advice on how to preserve and prepare freshly caught fish so that it will shine on the table with the best taste later.
This is the topic I would like to add here, based on my personal experience, because what I want to talk about was not yet recognized as gastronomy in the time of Sabaneev, that is, a product of exquisite cuisine ...
It's about cooking dried fish. I live in the lower reaches of the Volga, not far from the Caspian Sea. For a long time, our places have been known throughout Russia for dried and smoked fish, the vobla and ram are especially famous. Both of these fish are a kind of common roach, they spawn in the Volga, and live and eat off in the coastal waters of the Caspian Sea. Vobla can reach 1 kg of weight, is fat, the meat is reddish. The ram will be somewhat smaller, but wider in shape, reminiscent of a young bream. Vobla and ram were always abundant, the Volgarians caught and catch them in the spring during spawning, salted and dried the stock for the whole year.
Gradually, a whole culture of ways and techniques of such blanks developed, small, but very interesting discoveries in this matter were made. For example, at the time of Sabaneev, sabrefish and blue bream (a skinny and bony brother of bream) were considered waste fish, which were sometimes consumed by the "poorest classes" only out of strong need. And indeed, in boiled and fried sabrefish and blue bream are bony muck, but if you wither them correctly, then the best roach turns pale in front of them! Absolutely the same can be said about the famous Don Rybtsa.
I have tried a lot of dried dried meat in my life, for the most part it was bad, it was a pity for the fish spoiled by it through inability. But when I came across masterpieces, I did not calm down until I tried to find out all the secrets of their preparation. And the secrets turned out to be extremely simple!
Almost all amateur fishermen, if they want to wilt the fish, sprinkle their catch with salt or pour it with brine, hold it for a little while and hang it out on the street. Some of the fish will be spoiled by the flies, the other part will dry out somehow, and salt will appear on the scales, and if the weather is hot, then the fat ... Moreover, this fat will turn slightly rancid, which will give the taste a bitter unpleasant astringency.
The real dried dried meat has clean and shiny scales, dry to the touch, all the fat inside, the fish is therefore transparent to the light, the skeleton is visible, the meat is not fibrous, dense, but not tough, and accordingly, the taste is very ... edible ...
In our places, many owners have aluminum or wooden barrels in basements and garages. On the spring fishing season, these men either catch themselves, or buy at a cheap price freshly caught roach, ram, blue bream, sabrefish, bream, in general, whatever happens, and then let it all into their barrels, where strong brine is already poured. When the dry winter cold sets in, this fish is taken out, soaked from excess salt and hung with garlands outside the windows and on the balconies. That's the whole secret! There are no flies in the cold, fat does not evaporate - only water, - the meat does not spoil either. This method was discovered by the Astrakhan people, because the vobla for them is also earnings, you need to please the buyer. First, they dried the spring vobla in their cellars with glaciers and ventilation, it’s dark there, the flies won’t sit down, it’s cool, the fat won’t go rancid. But you can't prepare a lot like that, and the demand for roach in autumn and winter is higher. So they thought of drying it in the winter, and then keeping it all year round in cold cellars and sell as required.
Quite often I go to my friends and relatives in Kostroma and the Vologda region, I bring them our dried vyalenka as a gift: roach, ram, sabrefish, etc. These gifts of mine are always welcome. There, after all, the fish was never dried, sometimes only the housewives, if there is a lot of fresh fish fines, will keep it in brine, then in a pot and in the oven of a hot but cooling stove. The fish then easily fall apart in the hands, the meat separates from the bones and crumbles, the taste is salty, but very mediocre. This fish is also served with beer in cheap eateries in the Baltic states.
Meanwhile, in the rivers of Vologda and Kostroma, as well as in the rivers of the Moscow region, there is a local species of roach, its name is soroga. This is a small, palm-length, narrowish fish, but when it gets fat, it can be very round. Once I spent almost a month in the Vologda region, the second half of September and the first half of October. And it gets colder in these places early ... Every day I was fishing on the Sukhona river. A lot of good greasy sorghum was caught. The catch was usually piled in the hallway of the house where he lived, no need for a refrigerator. Once he took all the soroga caught in three days, put it in a saucepan: a layer of salt, a layer of fish, a layer of salt, a layer of fish ... Then he covered it with a plate, put a jar of water on it for weight. A day later, the fish gave juice, brine in our opinion. So she lay in my juice for three days. Then I took it out, washed it and put it in clean water for three hours to swim. After that, I hung out the rope with this fish outside, on the first frost. Two and a half weeks later, he took off this bundle, warmed it up in the room, bought a beer and called relatives with friends to take a sample. After trying, everyone agreed that they had never eaten such a glorious vobla before! Yes, this is not a roach, I say, but your primordial soroga ...
I surprised them then, and now I remember with pleasure. And also in letters from there now they regularly tell me who dried the sorogi how many in winter, as I have taught.
Mikhail Goldreer

On the picture:
2. Dried soroga.
3. Lick your fingers!

Experienced fishermen know the methods of fishing, the secrets of a rich catch. They will tell you how to manage the caught fish.

Fishing cuisine offers: dried and dried fish.

How to keep the catch on the "fish day"? Dried and dried fish - how is it different

Preserve the catch from spoilage by reducing moisture in the carcasses. Dried in two ways:

Hot - air temperature from 80 ° С;
Cold - the temperature does not exceed 40 ° C.

Drying is the same cold drying. Removes excess moisture, causes a biochemical process, as a result of which the properties of proteins and fat change, the product acquires new specific taste qualities. Therefore, despite the similarity of the process, dried and dried fish are different products in appearance and taste.

The fish is dried in salted or fresh form, in the process it does not ripen, therefore, the qualities of a dried product are not characteristic of it. Carcasses become tough, with a pungent odor. Cooking is required before use.

How to dry fish according to GOST? Cold drying catch

Inhabitants are suitable for drying fresh water... Drying dehydrates fish with simultaneous ripening, hence the aroma and taste. The product is ready to use without additional processing.

Drying is carried out by alternating heating and cooling the air. Warm up for four hours, rest for two hours. On the first day, the temperature is kept within 20 ° with a humidity of 50-60%. Further, the ratio of 25 ° to 40-60% relative air humidity is observed. A breeze of up to 2 m / s is required.

The size of the carcasses is more than 10 cm. Before the process, they are cut, washed, removing mucus and blood, salted in a cool brine, or by a dry method. The process is at least three days, until the carcass becomes dry and dense.

It is better to dry in April-May and autumn to save the product from flies. The fish is hung under a canopy in a draft, the sun and rain should not fall on the carcasses.

In the summer, frames with crossbars are arranged. Hooks or nails are driven into them to hang the workpiece. The fly frame is covered with a fine mesh, raised to an elevation for ventilation.

If the summer catch is consistently large, a stationary dryer is built, equipped with a canopy and a door.

When there is not enough fish in the summer, the carcasses are prepared, dried at night, in the morning they insert a tampon soaked in vegetable oil, the body is lightly coated with oil, wrapped in gauze. To prevent the material from touching the mascara, place spacers made of sticks. This is how the product is saved from flies.

In winter, they dry in a living room at a distance from the stove and heating appliances. A dish is placed under the fish to collect dripping fat.

All NHNCH (No tail, no scales)!