The best balyk is tender and soft, like salted salmon, slightly transparent to light, has a reddish color and slightly smells like fresh cucumber. Balyk - in Tatar means "fish". For a good balyk, they take large sturgeon fish, but you can take both catfish and carp. The main thing is that the fish should be oily and not have small bones. The thicker and fatter the balyk, the higher it is valued. The ideal time for making balyk is late spring, when the sun is already shining brightly, but the heat has not yet arrived, and a massive fly out has not begun.
It is necessary
-
- Large fatty fish
- Coarse salt
- not iodized
- Saltpeter (1 gram for every kilogram of prepared fish)
- Spices to taste (black pepper
- allspice
- Bay leaf
- carnation)
Instructions
Step 1
Take a large fat fish, separate the backbone along with the tail.
Pour boiling water over the salting dishes and dry. Put the fish in the prepared dish, pouring it with a mixture of salt, saltpeter and spices so that the backs do not touch each other or the walls of the dish. Without this precaution, the fish can go bad. The fish is kept in salt from 9 to 12 days. The larger the fish, the longer it will take for salting. In warm weather, the salting time is also increased.
Step 2
When the balyks are well salted, shake off excess salt from them and soak in water for 1-2 days. Water should be boiled or filtered. Can be soaked in very mild saline solution. Flip the backrests from time to time. The extra salt is extracted from the fish fillets by soaking.
Step 3
After that, hang out the balyk to sing. The place where the balyks will be dried is of great importance. It should be well ventilated, dry, warm, but not hot. In the old days, balyks were hung out for drying, tying them to high poles. The first days the balyks are dried in the bright sun, so that the fish grab onto a dense crust. This is a very important step in balyk preparation. If a crust does not form within 1-3 days, then the decay process will inevitably proceed.
Step 4
Finally, the balyks are hung up for ripening somewhere under a canopy, in a cool and dark place. The main thing is that the suspended backrests are well ventilated from all sides. Balyk ripens within 4-6 weeks. The sign of ripeness is the mold, which covers it on the outside. If such mold does not appear, then the balyk is too salty.
Less dried balyk is juicy, but stored worse. Well-dried balyk is tougher, but much more aromatic and can be stored for some time even without a refrigerator.
