Today, a rare holiday is complete without salted fish. Most often, housewives serve trout, salmon and pink salmon bought in a store. Why spend money when you can cook delicious lightly salted fish yourself?
Dry salting of fish is fastest. In addition, this product has a fairly dense consistency, which allows the fish to be used for making canapes, sandwiches, sushi and lavash rolls.
How to prepare fish for salting
The recipe for salted fish involves using a tablespoon of salt and sugar per kilogram of fillet. If it is not possible to purchase a fillet, you can prepare it yourself.
The fish's head, tail, and fins are cut off. Cutting the belly, take out the insides. Then, using a knife, they clean the carcass from the scales and wash the fish in cold running water. After cutting the carcass along the ridge, remove the spinal bone by slowly pulling on it. Most of the rib bones will come off along with the ridge.
The remaining bones can be removed with tweezers. If you plan to use the fish for making sandwiches, do not skin it. This way the fillets will retain their shape and will be much easier to cut.
It is better to cut the prepared fillet into approximately the same size pieces. The fish is washed again under running cool water and dried with paper towels.
How to salt fish
After the excess moisture has been removed from the fish, the fillets are evenly sprinkled with sugar and salt. You can rub the fish with ground red or black pepper to taste, add bay leaves, dry dill, 2-3 cloves to the container.
It is better to use glassware for salting fish. The metal container will oxidize and spoil the taste of the fish. The salting process will go much faster if the fillet is pressed down with a load. Therefore, cover the fillets tightly with plastic wrap and place something heavy on top, such as a saucepan filled with water.
During salting, the fish absorbs as much salt as necessary. Do not be afraid to oversalt the product. You can eat fish the very next day. The fillet is taken out from under the oppression and washed from the salt and sugar residues under cold water.
The fish is dried with napkins and put into the refrigerator. It is recommended to store home-salted fish for only 2-3 days. Therefore, you should not stock up on salted fish for future use.
If the fish seems a little salty, you can get rid of excess salt by filling the finished fillet with vegetable oil. After 1-2 hours, you can take the fish out of the oil and transfer it to a plate lined with napkins. The fat will quickly be absorbed into the paper, and the fish soaked in oil will taste much better.
