Recipe for salting smelt for drying. Several ways to cook dried smelt

Avid fishermen know everything about salting and drying fish. For those who by chance got smelt, and how to properly dry it is a big question, it is recommended to refer to our article.

There are several options for getting this tasty fish, for example, dry and wet. And many people add vinegar, soy sauce if desired.

Classic Dried Smelt Recipe

It doesn't matter if you have fresh fish or frozen. It is not caught everywhere, so some people can taste it in dried form only if they buy a finished product or cook it from thawed fish.

What you need:

• fresh fish;
• salt - ordinary table salt without additives at the rate of 1 cup per 0.5 kg of fish.

Salt and dry the smelt:

1. Wait for the excess liquid to come off the thawed smelt and put it in a container in layers, each generously sprinkling with salt.
2. Press down the fish with something flat, for example, a dish and put a load on top. You can pick up a five-liter bottle of water.
3. Clean in a cool place for 10-12 hours. This fish does not need more time, as it is small in size.
4. Rinse off salt and leave to soak in clean water for 2 hours.
5. Drain the water and hang the smelt from a string in a well-ventilated area. But avoid direct sunlight.

Dried smelt at home in a dry way

This method excludes the production of low-salted smelt, therefore it is suitable for lovers of very salty fish.

What you need:

• fresh fish;
• salt at the rate of 1 cup per 1 kg of raw materials.

1. As in the previous recipe, sprinkle the fish with salt and leave for a day without setting oppression.
2. Rinse and hang immediately.
3. You can sprinkle the fish with salt until a salt coat forms. Leave for 5-8 hours, and then spread out on a surface that absorbs liquid.

It is believed that excess salt will also come out of the smelt juice. As soon as the fish dries, it can be hung without soaking and rinsing in water.

What you need:

• fresh fish;
• salt;
• to determine the saturation of the brine;
• vinegar and soy sauce optional.

Drying smelt at home:

1. Pour fresh water into the prepared container and throw the peeled potatoes into it.
2. Gradually add salt and stir until dissolved. Potatoes that float to the surface will be confirmation that the desired brine consistency has been obtained.
3. Optionally, you can add soy-based sauce to it at the rate of 330 ml per 12 liters of liquid.
4. Put the fish in the brine, and put oppression on top to prevent it from surfacing.
5. 6-8 hours is enough for salting. Half an hour before its end, it is recommended to pour 1 tbsp vinegar into the brine. l.
6. After the fish, rinse in clean running water and allow excess liquid to drain. After soaking in a sweetened solution and wait for the excess moisture to drain.
7. Now you can hang.

How to hang a fish - by the head or tail

On the other hand, hanging by the tail helps to avoid a bitter taste, as all excess bitterness will leave through the mouth. Therefore, experienced fishermen are advised to first hang by the tail, and as soon as the excess moisture is gone, turn the fish upside down.

A small smelt is enough for 1-2 days to dry, but weather conditions and how much relatives love dried fish will determine a lot.

Like any other dried fish - wrapped in paper in a cool place. You can not put the fish in a bag for storage, as it will quickly deteriorate from a lack of air.

There are many options for preparing dried smelt, in each region it is salted in its own way, following the rules of preparation.

Classic recipe

How to cook classic smelt:

Fresh fish must be gutted, the scales do not need to be removed, it will not hurt. Prepare a container, plastic or enameled, lay a layer of fish, sprinkle with coarse salt without additives, you can use sea salt.

Put the second layer of smelt and again cover with salt. And so on, until the product runs out. Sugar is needed for the product to shine, smelt does not rust.

Cover the container with a lid and leave to salt for 12-20 hours, the time depends on the volume of the harvested product. After the expiration of the term, rinse the smelt and hang it on a hanger for several days.

After 2-3 days, the beer snack is ready. Such fish is stored in the refrigerator or in a jar with a tightly closed lid.

Smelt in brine (saline solution)

1. It is better to use freshly caught fish, after a day the taste changes. The brine is prepared as follows - water is poured into the basin, a raw egg (potato) is placed and salt is added.

In a saturated saline solution, ungutted smelt is placed. The main thing in this recipe is not to overcook the fish. For a small mouth, the salting time is 4 hours, for a bison - 6 hours.

After the fish is salted, it must be washed in cold water and hung to dry. String it on a hanger or a rope by the tail and leave it in a well-ventilated area, after 7 hours hang it by the head.

Dried fish is stored in the freezer so that it does not deteriorate.

Fish at home

The carcasses are washed, poured with water so that it is 10-15 cm above the level of the fish. Coarse salt is added to the water, based on 10 kg of fish - 1 kg of salt, kept in brine for 4-5 hours, stirring regularly.

The brine is thoroughly washed off, the fish is dipped in a solution of vinegar or sugar to make it shine, and hung out to dry. Such fish is dried for 1-2 weeks, depending on the temperature of the room.

Quick salting

Cover the fish with salt in such an amount that a salt crust forms on it. Soak in a fur coat of salt for 4 hours, spread out on paper napkins.

Excess juice and excess salt should drain from it, after 4 hours it can be hung out.

Smelt with red pepper

2 kg fresh fish
5 kg salt
1 head of garlic
ground red pepper to taste

How to cook smelt with pepper:

Place the fish in an enamel basin, sprinkle with salt. Put a lid on top and press down with a yoke. After 4 hours, rinse the product under running water and place in another bowl.

Sprinkle with pepper and minced garlic. Hold for 2 hours, then hang in a ventilated area.

Smelt is a medium-sized fish, widespread in the seas of the Pacific, North and Atlantic oceans. Belongs to the smelt order. European, Asian and smallmouth smelt are objects of amateur and commercial fishing. Fresh smelt is distinguished from other fish by the piercing smell of fresh cucumbers.

Among amateur fishermen, ice fishing for smelt with “mahalka” fishing rods is very popular. Despite the fact that such a rod can be bought at a fishing supply store, real masters of ice fishing make them with their own hands. If luck smiles at the fisherman, he can easily catch up to 5 kg of smelt per day with one rod.

There is nothing tastier than fried smelt, sometimes fishermen roast it without leaving the place of fishing. If the number of fish caught exceeds the appetites of one family, it can be prepared for the future. Dried smelt is a great addition to beer. It is also suitable for a quick snack.

Ingredients:

• Smelt - 1 kg
• Coarse salt - 150 g
• Sugar - 20 g
• Wire - 150 cm

How to dry smelt - a step by step recipe with a photo

Wash fresh smelt.

Step 1. Wash the fish

Put in a bowl and sprinkle the fish with coarse salt. Add sugar. It will make dried smelt more attractive in appearance and allow it to be stored longer without loss of taste. Stir and leave the fish at room temperature for 8 hours. During this time, the contents of the bowl should be mixed 3-4 times. In the case when there is a lot of smelt, the salting time must be increased by 2-3 hours.

Step 2: Sprinkle with salt and sugar

After that, rinse the smelt with running water. String on the wire, piercing the fish heads in the middle. You can also string the fish on a harsh thread using a large “gypsy” needle.

Step 3. String the fish

After three to four days, the dried smelt is ready. It is important not to overdry the fish. Dried smelt can be wrapped in parchment paper and stored in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator for 2-3 months.

Step 4. Smelt for beer

Although if there are foam lovers in the house, dried smelt will be eaten by them very quickly.

Many have long abandoned harmful chips and crackers stuffed with dyes, preservatives, flavor enhancers and artificial additives. Natural products are now in vogue, including beer snacks.

Unfortunately, it is not always possible to buy fish in a store in good quality. It comes across either too salty, or too old (yellow, “rusty”), or with an unpleasant odor. Let's take today as an example. This small fish has long won the hearts of lovers of a foamy drink. However, dried smelt is quite expensive in the store.

How to save money on beer snacks? The answer is very simple - buy fresh fish, the price of which does not bite so much, and cook it at home yourself. How to make dried smelt at home - we will tell in this article.

Salting fish

Proper salting of fish is an important step in cooking. In order to properly salt smelt, you need half a kilogram of fresh fish and half a kilogram of salt. If there are more fish, then it will not be difficult to calculate the regularity of the ratio between salt and the main product.

salting process

Dried smelt is good because in the process of its preparation it is not necessary to remove the insides and suffer from scales. The fish will only need to be thawed, rinsed under cold water and placed in pre-prepared dishes. Remember that each fish carcass must be covered with salt. Either dip each in salt and then place in a bowl, or sprinkle on top and mix thoroughly. It is recommended to lay a plastic cling film on top of the dishes. Some housewives still put a load on the fish, for example, a three-liter jar of water. But you can not do this. If you have cooked the fish correctly, it will salt perfectly even without pressure.

Next comes the waiting stage. First, the salt will dissolve, then the fish will give its own juice and will infuse in this form. The waiting time is usually around twelve hours. That is, if you salted the fish in the morning, then by the evening you can proceed to the next stage of cooking. It is not necessary to put the fish in the refrigerator, being afraid of spoilage of the product. The salt won't let it go.

Needs to be rinsed. You can try it for salt. If it turned out to be too salty (it lay for more than 12 hours), then the fish must be soaked in cold water. To do this, put it in a bulk bowl with water and leave it for a couple of hours. At the same time, remember that it is recommended to change the water every hour.

Drying the fish

There are several ways to make home-dried smelt no worse than the store-bought version. There are several ways to dry salted fish. Which one to choose is up to you.

Newspaper for fish

For a long time, fishermen dried fish with a regular newspaper. Nowadays, many do exactly the same, without using the suspension method. When you have washed the fish, rid it of excess moisture, it can be dried. A newspaper (any paper) is spread on a wide baking sheet, and fish is placed on it. Try not to let the fish touch each other. There must be distance between them.

In this form, we send the baking sheet with the fish to a well-ventilated place, for example, to the balcony. In order for the dried smelt to turn out tasty, not to deteriorate during the drying process, it should not be placed in a place that has access to direct sunlight. After a day or two, the fish is ready to eat.

Using the suspension method

The most commonly used method of drying fish is by hanging on a thread or fishing line. Fishermen advise taking a thicker thread so that it can withstand the total weight of the product. We thread a needle with a large eye and make “shots” in the eye of the fish. Connoisseurs do not recommend immediately hanging the fish, piercing the tail. During drying, water will drain into the fleshiest part of the carcass, which, in turn, will dry out worse. It is better to hang it first by the head, and a day later - by the tail. So the fish will dry evenly, the excess liquid will properly go away, there will be no unpleasant odor.

Remember to keep a distance between the carcasses. So you will ensure sufficient air access, proper drying and preservation of the taste of each individual fish.

Hanging on a string, the fish is dried on a balcony or in any other place with good ventilation. How long will dried smelt be cooked? Everything here will depend on your taste preferences. Someone likes raw fish, someone prefers an almost "oak" dry version. In any case, it is not worth removing the fish from the line before two days later.

How to store dried smelt

Sometimes, especially for families of fishermen, a fairly decent amount of fish appears in the house. What to do with her? Of course, salt and dry. But how to keep this abundance of fish?

We hang

Experts say that dried smelt, the recipes for which are described above, can be stored for a long time in several ways. The most common - in limbo. If the weather is right, then on the balcony on which the fish was dried, it will be stored further. If you live in a private house, then you can use a barn, garage or veranda as a place to store dried fish.

However, fish should be stored in a suspended form correctly. It is better to wrap it in newspaper or paper. You do not need to pack each fish, you can take a "bundle" and wrap it. So the fish does not dry out and retains its taste for a long time. But remember, if there is at least one spoiled dried smelt in the bunch, then it is better not to eat the rest of the fish. Therefore, make the "bundle" small - 5-7 carcasses in one.

Freezing

By far, cold is the best way to store food. The container used is a wooden box, plastic or glassware, in which the dried smelt should be placed after drying (photo attached). Many housewives simply wrap the fish in paper and put it in the freezer. There are many options, choose the one that is more convenient for you.

Can

An excellent way to store dried fish is also considered to be the use of tin containers. Of course, it is not always possible to find a real tin can, but if you succeeded, then you are a happy hostess. Salted, dried dried smelt is placed in neat rows in a tin. Close the lid tightly and put it in the cabinet in the kitchen. In this form, without access to sunlight and insects, the fish will last about three months.

Dried fish calories

So many people who are on a diet, it seems that eating dried fish is not worth it. However, experts say that dried fish will not harm a losing weight body. Including dried smelt. Its calorie content is only 146 kcal per hundred grams of product. Some types of fish, cooked "according to the rules of losing weight" in the oven or steamed, can be much more high-calorie.

In addition, dried smelt is a source of a large amount of protein. It consists of only 5 grams of fat and 0.07 grams of carbohydrates, the rest is protein. One hundred grams of this fish contains about 25 grams of protein. Nutritionists call this combination of BJU ideal for those who decide to lose weight. Few foods can boast such a large amount of protein with a low total calorie figure.

Has it happened in your life that with cold beer or just like that you wanted dried fish? You dress up, go to the nearest store, but bad luck - the prices bite. In such a situation, in order to save the family budget and enjoy a salty snack at any time, you can make it in your own kitchen. And the list of products is minimal - fresh fish and salt.

The most common way

Rinse the smelt well. Sprinkle coarse salt generously on the bottom of the dish, then lay the fish in one row. Again, without regret, sprinkle spices and so on until the seafood runs out.

After covering the last layer with seasoning, put the press and put the dishes in a dark place for a day. A refrigerator is not recommended as the temperature should be at room temperature. And the salt will draw out excess moisture from the smelt.

Then, using a needle with a silk thread or wire, string it, and either pierce through the eyes or tails. Hang the fish on the balcony and leave it overnight. Do not forget to lay rags under the bottom or put a bowl, because excess liquid will come out of your smelt and everything on the floor. In the morning, hang it at a distance of an elongated fin and put it in the shade. After a couple of days, a delicious beer snack is ready for sampling.

Nuances

1. What is the difference between dried fish and dried fish? It's simple: in the first case, the smelt is in the shade during the entire salting process, which allows it to take a dry, solid form. And in order to treat yourself to a soft beer snack, the entire drying process must be carried out in the sun.
2. How to determine the necessary proportions? On average, products are taken like this: if you have 500 g of fish, then we take 1/10 of the total mass of salt - a total of 50 g.
3. How to hang the fish correctly: by the head or by the tail? Here it’s convenient for anyone, although some cooks claim that when the smelt is hung upside down, the internal organs will flow out through the mouth (in case this happens).
4. How should the dried product be stored? To prevent your snack from turning into "crackers", you need to store it in a closed container or a bag with a lock in the refrigerator.
5. How else can you dry smelt? Peppercorn to the finished dish can be given with the help of paprika and garlic. To do this, after the fish has been under pressure for a day, the water must be drained and the smelt should be covered row by row with hot spices. Another hour and the fish is ready for drying.
6. What if there is no balcony? Owners of private houses or cottages can take advantage of the dark space under the flight of stairs or cellar. Also great for drying smelt garage.