In order for the pike perch baked in the oven to turn out to be unusually tasty, you need to know a few secrets of its preparation. This dish is considered dietary, since it does not differ in high fat content, but at the same time has a high nutritional value.
Zander can be classified as a valuable fish species. It contains a large amount of protein, vitamins, microelements, but at the same time it has a minimum fat content. The amino acids that make up its proteins are mostly unsaturated. This means that they are not synthesized in the human body, but must necessarily enter it along with food.
There are many options for cooking pike perch. One of the most popular types of its culinary processing is baking. Pike perch can be baked whole, in the form of steaks or fillets. Ready-made semi-finished products can be purchased at the store, but you can also cut the fish yourself. When buying ice cream pike perch, you must first defrost it, and then proceed to cutting.
Cutting must begin with cleaning the fish from the scales. This is most conveniently done with a special fish scaler. Next, you need to open the abdominal cavity, remove the insides, cut out the gills or remove the head completely, cut off the fins. Several transverse cuts need to be made along the back. After finishing cutting the pike perch, rinse thoroughly under running water.
It is recommended to cut large fish into steaks. To do this, the finished carcass should be cut into transverse pieces 2-3 centimeters thick. When cutting, deep longitudinal cuts must be made on either side of the dorsal fin of the fish, and then fillet must be removed from the rib bones.
The onion must be peeled, cut into half rings. To bake a fish weighing about 1 kilogram, you will need 2 small onions and half a lemon, cut into slices.
Lemon not only softens the fish, gives it a unique aroma, but also eliminates the specific muddy smell characteristic of pike perch caught in some bays.
Put the chopped pike perch on a baking sheet lined with foil, salt, pepper, put onions on it. Onion rings and lemon mugs can be inserted into the notches on the back. The foil should be closed and the baking sheet should be placed in an oven preheated to 180 ° C.
The cooking time of the dish directly depends on the size of the fish and the type of its cutting. Uncut pike perch and carcass should be baked for 30-40 minutes. It will take 20-30 minutes to bake steaks and fillets.
5-10 minutes before the end of cooking, you need to open the foil and continue baking. This is necessary for the formation of a golden brown crust on the surface of the fish.
To make the baked pike perch even more tasty, before starting the heat treatment, you can pour it with sour cream sauce, for the preparation of which you need to stir 3-4 tablespoons of sour cream in an incomplete glass of water and add spices, chopped herbs.
5-10 minutes before the end of cooking, you can open the foil and sprinkle the zander with grated cheese. In this case, the dish turns out to be especially tasty.
Serve baked whole pike perch on a special fish dish. From the cuts on the back of the carcass, you need to remove the cooked lemon circles and replace them with fresh ones. The fillets or steaks should be placed in portioned plates. You can serve pike perch with potatoes, rice, fresh or stewed vegetables.
