How to clean crucian carp - quick and easy ways to remove scales and entrails

Crucian carp is a very tasty and healthy fish, but many refuse to introduce it into their diet only because they do not know how to properly clean carcasses. The process of removing scales and entrails can hardly be called pleasant, but there are several secrets that can reduce the hassle to a minimum. First of all, you need to spend a little time preparing the crucian carp for subsequent processing, which many people do not do. After this, a few minutes will be enough to thoroughly clean the workpieces.

Preparation

It is better to start cleaning any fish immediately after purchasing it in a store or catching it. If this does not work, you need to freeze the carcass in the refrigerator. Wrap the crucian carp in a plastic bag and put it in the freezer. This way the fish will not lose moisture and it will be easier to remove the scales.

If you often clean crucian carp, it is advisable to purchase a special board with a cutting clamp. The skin of this fish is quite slippery, so even salt will not solve the problem. Using gloves can leave your hands smelling like fish.

If you are cleaning live fish, stun it with a hammer first. Then make an incision near the head to remove excess blood.

If you buy crucian carp in a store, choose small carcasses. They are easier to process and more tasty. They don't have many small bones. Medium-sized crucian carp can be used for frying and fish soup.

If the carcass was previously frozen, it should be allowed to thaw at room temperature. To speed up the process, you can place the crucian carp in cold water with a quarter teaspoon of salt. This will prevent the fish from becoming soft. Before cutting, the fish should be doused with boiling water or kept in a weak vinegar solution for a couple of hours. Be sure to remove mucus from the skin. Treat it with salt and rinse. If there is too much mucus, place the fish in boiling water for 30 seconds. Immersing the fish in cool salt water for 30 minutes will help eliminate the smell of mud. Don't forget to rinse the carcass after this.

The right choice of crucian carp

In many specialized stores you can buy live crucian carp. Having chosen the fish he likes, the seller catches it in a cage. If you buy live fish, then one hundred percent is a fresh product that can only spoil due to the fault of the buyer. It’s another matter when you buy frozen or chilled fish. It’s important not to make a mistake here. You should not buy a frozen product, since it is impossible to determine the quality of deep-frozen crucian carp. If the fish is chilled, then freshness is determined by the gills and eyes. The eyes of fish that have deteriorated and have already begun to deteriorate are cloudy, not bright black. The gills of fresh fish are red without shades of black or blue.

Tools and accessories

First, prepare the area where you will be cleaning. Also prepare the dishes and necessary tools. Fishermen choose multifunctional fish scalers, the blades of which have special serrations. A grater will also help to clean the crucian carp, which will not allow the scales to fly in all directions. It is better to choose a four-sided grater. With one hand you can take the crucian carp, and with the other you can make movements from top to bottom.

If time allows, you can place the carcass in a plastic container and cover it with salt. Leave the fish like this in the refrigerator for 12 hours. During this time, the scales will fall off on their own. If you don't have tools, use a regular spoon and fork.

Removing the entrails

We are looking for a glass bottle. We break it and select a more or less usable piece of glass. It would be ideal if it had a pointed edge.
We carefully examine it, we try to break off all the small parts that can easily break off from the fragment. We wash our instrument.
We take it, scrape off the scales, rip open the belly, and gut the fish.
The most important thing is that we thoroughly wash our gutted crucian carp; insurance is not superfluous.

By combining two recipes for cooking fried crucian carp and stewed in sour cream, you can get an excellent dish. Here is one of many options:

Cleaning scales and removing offal

First of all, you need to remove the scales. This process is quick if done correctly.

Carefully cut off the fins using scissors. If you do not remove them, they will interfere with further processing.
If you are removing scales from large fish, you may not need to use specially designed tools for this. This can be done easily by hand. Only on the abdomen, near the fins and at the tail will you need to work with a knife.
Small crucian carp are cleaned with a grater, a blunt knife, a vegetable cutter or a special device. Make movements in the direction from the tail to the head.

The scales of this fish are not in close contact with the skin. so the process will be quite simple. It is advisable to clean in a basin of water or under a tap. Otherwise, the scales may scatter throughout the kitchen, leaving an unwanted odor in the room for a long time.

Once you clean the crucian carp, start gutting it.

Make a cut on the abdomen from head to tail. Try not to cut very deep, otherwise you may damage the insides.
Remove the giblets and the black film.
Clean with caution, try not to touch the gallbladder. If this happens, you will need to immediately rinse the fish with water and clean it with salt. Otherwise, the meat will have an unpleasant taste.
Rinse the carcass again, removing mucus and scales.

It is not necessary to remove the bones. You can do it simpler: make an incision on the skin of the fish. This will make it possible to cut the bones, under the influence of hot water and oil they will become soft and quite edible.

Ingredients

This article is devoted to cleaning river fish (in general, the cleaning scheme is the same for all fish found in freshwater bodies of Russia).
Having mastered the technique on crucian carp, perch, pike, roach and bream, which are often found in central Russia, the experience can easily be extended to both sea fish (trout, salmon, dorado, siabass) and varieties common in stores (carp, silver carp, grass carp). In general, it doesn’t matter what kind of fish you clean - the principle and sequence of actions will be the same. 1. For clarity, let’s take the most common medium-sized crucian carp in reservoirs.

01 Small (palm-sized) crucian carp

2. Cleaning live fish is neither humane nor convenient, so the first thing you need to do is kill it. To do this, either leave her in the air for a while until she falls asleep or hit her on the head, for example, with the handle of a knife.

02 Stunning a fish with a knife handle

3. Next you need to actually clean the scales. The scales begin to be removed from the tail of the fish and end towards the head. For this operation, a small knife is best suited, and its sharpness does not matter; even a dull one is preferable since it cannot cut you. But you should only think about a separate cleaning knife if you need to clean a lot of fish. First one side of the fish is cleared of scales, then the other. Also, do not forget about the abdomen - there are especially hard and durable scales that are the most difficult to clean.

03 Beginning to remove scales from the fish's tail

4. After removing the scales, you can remove the eyes from the fish, the key point is that it is not necessary to remove the eyes, they are edible and taste almost no different from the rest of the fish, but there are people who are embarrassed by them on the plate, so they are removed. This is done with the sharp tip of a knife.

04 Eye removal

5. Now the most crucial moment (perhaps the only point, if you make a mistake, you can ruin it). The belly of the fish must be cut and this must be done so that the knife is parallel to the fish and in no case is the sharp tip pointing inward. So you need to cut from the head to the ventral fins. This is where the gallbladder is located.

05 Cutting the front of the belly

6. From the ventral fins and further to the tail, you can cut as you like.

06 Cutting the back of the belly

7. All intestines and swim bladder from the belly of the fish must be removed. If you have it, you can leave the caviar or milt separately, but this is for fish caught from late August to May.

07 Guts in the belly

8. When removing the intestines, you should be careful and never damage the gallbladder. If you pierce it and the bile spreads over the fish, it is easier to throw it away than to continue cleaning and cooking - the taste will be bitter and disgusting.

08 Gallbladder among other intestines

9. There should be nothing left in the belly of the fish after cleaning. If the fish had caviar or milt, you can put it back in the belly and cook it that way.

09 Empty belly of crucian carp

10. The last thing to do with the fish before transferring it to the kitchen for further cooking is to remove the gills. To do this, you need to cut the bridge from below with a knife between the head and the rest of the fish’s body.

10 Trimming the lintel

11. The gills are quite easy to remove, the main thing is to pick them up with a knife and just pull them out.

11 Removing the gill strings

12. That’s all, the fish (crucian carp) is cleaned. After cleaning and before cooking, it is advisable to rinse the fish in clean water. It took 7 minutes to clean this one taking into account photographing. If you don’t get distracted, it takes 2-3 minutes for one small crucian carp. Larger fish can be cleaned more slowly because there are more scales to remove and it is not convenient to hold.

Source

Cleaning procedure

Here is a step-by-step algorithm of actions.

Remove the dorsal fin using scissors. Grab it with a cloth and tear it off.
Remove scales.
Take out the giblets.
Rinse the fish with water several times.
Remove any remaining blood.
Cut the carcass into portions or fillet it.
Place in a colander to remove excess liquid.

Chef's borscht

At least once every person wants to feel like a real chef and surprise their loved ones with some unusual dish. You can prepare delicious borscht from crucian carp according to the recipe from the chef. It is prepared simply and from available products. To prepare borscht you will need:

8 crucian carp;
600 g beets;
400 g each of carrots and onions;
A kilogram of fresh white cabbage;
Half a kilo of sauerkraut;
200 g parsley root;
A kilogram of sea salt;
200 g tomato paste;
100 g granulated sugar;
A couple of liters of fish broth;
4 tbsp. spoons of sunflower oil;
A couple of st. spoons of apple cider vinegar;
A bunch of greenery;
Pepper and salt.

First you need to bake the beets in sea salt, placing them in an oven preheated to 100°C for a couple of hours.
Cool the baked beets and chop them into strips. Peel the crucian carp, remove the entrails and fry in sunflower oil until golden brown. Leave a couple of carcasses for the broth.
Boil the cleaned and washed crucian carp in a saucepan with water over low heat for about 40 minutes. Throw in a few peas of allspice and bay leaf.
Cut the peeled and washed parsley root into strips.
Chop the onion and carrots into strips as well.
Sauerkraut should be lightly fried in a frying pan with vegetable oil. Then add a glass of fish broth and a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste to it.
Strain the fish broth and let it boil. Then add fresh cabbage, also cut into strips. Cook for a quarter of an hour.
In a frying pan with vegetable oil, lightly fry the chopped onion, carrots and parsley root. Then place the beets here and pour in 3 tablespoons of fish broth. Simmer for 10 minutes, then add the remaining tomato paste. Mix everything well and cook for another 5 minutes.
Transfer the prepared fried vegetables into the broth with the cabbage boiling in it and cook for approximately 10 minutes.
Let the borscht boil and add sauerkraut, finely chopped herbs and vinegar. Salt and pepper everything to taste.

There are two options for serving borscht on the table. You can serve fried crucian carp in a separate plate, or you can serve it in a plate with borscht.

100 grams of fish borscht contains:

5.9 g protein;
2.1 g fat;
5.4 g carbohydrates.

The calorie content of the dish is 63.8 Kcal.

Gutting

The choice of gutting method will depend on what kind of dish you want to make. Usually the giblets are removed through an incision in the abdomen. After making an incision, you need to carefully pull out the liver and gall bladder. Try not to squeeze them to avoid crushing them. Otherwise, the bile will leak out and spoil the taste of the meat. If this situation cannot be avoided, you need to quickly cut off the damaged areas or treat them with salt.

There are a lot of bones in the carp. To remove them, it is advisable to make an incision on the back to the vertebrae. After this, cut the carcass lengthwise, moving from head to tail. Separate the tail. If you plan to bake the crucian carp whole, remove the giblets through the cut made under the head. Remove the gills. Place the filling inside. You can also remove the head along with its entrails, clean out the cavity and rinse it.

In cream

Boneless crucian carp, which can be cooked with cream in 40 minutes, will make 3 servings.

To prepare 2 large crucian carp you will need:

150 heavy cream from 15%;
30 ml refined oil;
50 g wheat flour;
0.5 tsp. ground pepper;
0.5 tsp. salt.

Sequence of cooking crucian carp in cream:

Wash the crucian carp under running water, wipe dry, and remove fins, entrails and scales. Cut the carcasses down to the spine, cutting through the small bones. Place the crucian carp in a separate container, season with salt and pepper, sprinkle with flour and roll.
Heat the oil in a deep frying pan, place the fish carcasses in it and cook until they are covered with a crust. Pour the cream into another frying pan, transfer the carcasses into them and cook covered for about 5-6 minutes. on low heat.
Remove the crucian carp from the stove, distribute into portioned plates, garnish with parsley leaves and dill sprigs. Crucian carp will go well with mashed potatoes or vegetable salad.

Boneless crucian carp - recipe with cream.
Ready.

How to speed up the cleaning process?

If you plan to prepare minced meat, you need to gut the fish before cutting, but you don’t have to remove the scales. You can separate the spine fillet, remove the bones, and only then remove the skin and scales.

You can cook fish soup from the fins, tail and head. Rinse the bones thoroughly beforehand. Remove the gill arches to prevent the broth from acquiring an unpleasant odor and taste. Even a properly prepared product can be spoiled by improper preparation. Follow these rules:

Do not fry crucian carp in unrefined sunflower oil. It is advisable to cook with olive oil. Otherwise, the meat will acquire a bitter smell and taste.
To make the product healthier, steam the fish or bake it in the oven.

Here are ways that allow you to clean crucian carp in just a few minutes:

A spoon and a fork. Hold the carcass with a fork and peel off the scales with a spoon.
Grater. You can use a regular vegetable grater, or you can make a cleaning device with your own hands. To do this, screw the tin lids onto a wooden base.
Boiling water. Pour boiling water over the fish. Try not to overexpose the meat in hot water, otherwise the scales will come off along with the skin.

Freezing. Place the fish in the freezer for 8 hours. A couple of hours before cleaning, take it out into the sink. It will be easier to clean such a carcass.
Salting. This option will speed up cleaning and prevent the fish from slipping in your hands.
Grinder or drill. This is a non-standard option for cleaning fish from scales. But it is better not to use this method in the kitchen at home.

To get rid of unwanted odors, you can simply ventilate the kitchen. If this is not enough, boil water using vinegar or heat ground coffee in a frying pan. If you have not cooked the crucian carp immediately after processing, store it in the freezer, wrapped in cling film. This way the fish will be preserved better and will not transfer its smell to other products. For ease of subsequent preparation, it is better to cut the fillet into pieces.

If you bought fish to fry, leave it on the drain or in a colander before cooking. This will allow excess moisture to drain. Otherwise, you will end up with stewed rather than fried crucian carp. You can fry the carcass with the head; to prepare fish soup, it is advisable to remove the head along with the gills.

A few important nuances

To prepare a tasty dish, it is important not only to be able to properly clean fish, but also to take into account the following points during preparation and subsequent processing:

You can fry fish with the head on, but it’s better to boil the product without it. In this case, this part is cut off along with the gills.
If the crucian carp has an unpleasant smell of mud, then the very first stage of treatment will be soaking it in a concentrated salt solution for 1-2 hours.
Before cleaning crucian carp or cutting them on a board, all tools and utensils can be wiped with water and lemon juice. This will reduce the severity of the fishy smell that affects the devices after manipulation.
Crucian carp that will not be boiled or fried immediately after cleaning should be wrapped in cling film and placed in the freezer. These products should not be in the refrigerator at all. Within 1-2 hours they become covered with thick, unpleasant mucus and from the very first minute they emit an odor that ingrains itself in food and dishes.
Fish intended for frying should be placed in a colander after cleaning and soaking. If you do not allow excess water to drain, the product will not fry, but will be stewed in a sauce made from vegetable oil, water and breadcrumbs (or flour).

Crucian carp is a simple fish, so you need to handle it as simply as possible. Even recipes should be chosen that require a minimum of hassle and additional ingredients.

Cleaning in nature

In nature, you don’t have to worry about scales flying around. Fishermen will find the following cleaning option very convenient:

Rinse the fish with cold water.
Nail it to the board.
Hold the head of the carcass and pull it. This will make it easier to clean the scales.
Use a knife.
Make a cut above the head, remove the head with scales.

To make cleaning easier, treat the crucian carp with salt. If you don't have a knife on hand, you can use any tin can. Make ragged holes in it using a nail. Attach the workpiece to the block. Clean the crucian carp carefully so as not to accidentally touch the skin. The cut can be very severe.

Cleaning equipment can smell strongly of fish, so after cleaning the fish you should wash it with soap and water. If you cannot remove the unpleasant odor, wipe the appliances with heated salt and wash again.

And another option that is suitable for cleaning crucian carp in nature is to use a high-pressure washer. This method is especially effective; it is suitable for cleaning crucian carp in the yard of a private house. Adjust the jet so that the scales fly off easily. Try not to damage the fish meat and skin. Attach the fish to the board and start cleaning.

As you can see, cleaning crucian carp is not the easiest task. But if you follow the recommendations described above, you can carry out the procedure quickly and easily. Crucian carp is a river fish. which is included in many recipes. Here is a video that will help you understand how to properly and quickly clean crucian carp.

Living conditions

This applies to cleaning crucian carp in an apartment or your own home. The classic tool remains the knife. The order is:

We wash and dry the fish with an unnecessary towel or rag so that it does not slip.
We clear the scales. We take a knife and remove the scales from head to tail. Crucian carp is a representative of the carp family; in most species the scales are easily removed. We examine our crucian carp to see if we have missed the zone. Wipe the crucian carp again.
Now we open the belly, hold the crucian carp by the back so that there is no threat of cutting yourself during ripping. We insert the end of the knife into the anus with the tip of the blade from a crucian carp, cutting to the head.
We remove the giblets, the head as you wish: you can cook with it or cut it off at this stage. The crucian carp is cleaned, wash it and put it on a plate, take another one.

IMPORTANT! If we started with opening and removing the offal, then cleaning it from the scales would be problematic. Why? While the belly is intact, not ripped open, it has hardness - when scraping off the scales, the knife will have support. Otherwise, the halves of the belly will hang out and you won’t be able to scrape them off.

And you can put additional seasoning into these same cuts. In this case, lemon. Crucian carp with lemon goes very well.

There has long been information among fishermen about cleaning crucian carp with a spoon, saying that it is easy to scrape off the scales. Yes, this is true, but you won’t have to rip it open with a blunt object like a spoon. Here is a list of alternatives to a knife:

blade from a T-shaped machine. We clean off the scales with the blunt sides, and cut them with the sharp sides. At all stages you should be careful not to cut yourself;
scalpel. If its blade is very thin (disposable), then we clean off the scales with a butt;
scissors. The blunt sides of folded scissors will clean off scales perfectly. We open the scissors, insert the tip where necessary, and cut the belly like cardboard. By the way, it is very convenient to clean with scissors - the only option with a minimum risk of injury!

These are possible items that you can use to quickly clean crucian fish at home. Now let’s move on to the “I’m a prepper” series.

Tips and tricks

Even children love the soft, juicy crucian carp meat obtained from this recipe. A simple process will help the housewife prepare an original dish for dinner. The basics of the recipe for crucian carp with sour cream in the oven are as follows:

Expert opinion

Ksenia Diyanova, expert on beauty, purity, harmony

Ask me any questions, I will be happy to answer!

In this case, the fish is covered with a hand or hands, and the cleaning itself is done with the nails of the thumbs across the growth of the scales. The blunt end of the pruner's claw, which enters the belly of the crucian carp, allows you not to worry about it touching and damaging the gallbladder. Removing scales Ask me all your questions, I will be happy to answer!

In milk

You can bake 6 servings in milk in 60 minutes.

Ingredients for cooking 500 g of crucian carp:

300 ml milk;
2 tbsp. l. sour cream;
3 tbsp. l. lemon juice;
1 large onion;
30 ml sunflower oil;
100 g flour;
salt and spices as desired.

Algorithm for cooking crucian carp in milk:

Start by cleaning and washing the crucian carp. Afterwards, dry each carcass and cut 4 times on both sides.
Place the prepared fish in a deep bowl, pour in lemon juice, sprinkle with salt and spices. Mix well and marinate for about 15-30 minutes.
Pour flour onto a flat dish, dip the carcasses into it and roll. Heat the oil in a frying pan, add crucian carcasses into it and fry until a golden coating forms. Chop the peeled onion into random pieces and place on a baking sheet previously covered with foil.
Distribute the fish over the onion. Mix milk with sour cream and pour onto crucian carcasses. Preheat the oven to 180-200°C, place the fish in milk sauce inside and bake for at least 15-20 minutes. Garnish the fish with lemon slices and parsley leaves.

With vegetables

Boneless crucian carp, which can be cooked in 60 minutes, makes 4 servings.

Products	Quantity
crucian carp	4 things.
onion	0,5
potato	400 g
tomatoes	200 g
clove of garlic	1 PC.
Bell pepper	1 PC.
pepper and salt	optional

Stages of preparing boneless crucian carp with vegetables:

Start by preparing the vegetables - wash and peel them. Chop the pepper into strips, potatoes into bars, and tomatoes into slices.
Clean the crucian carp from all excess, cut on both sides, wash and pat dry with napkins.
Place vegetables and fish in a bowl, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and add oil. Mix the ingredients together, place in a baking bag and tie. Turn on the oven so that its temperature rises to 200°C.
Place a baking sheet with a sleeve inside the oven. Cook vegetables and fish for 50 minutes. Take the baked dish out onto the table and untie the sleeve. Serve vegetables and fish in portioned plates with fresh herbs.