Herring has always been considered the favorite fish of Russians. It is impossible to imagine a festive table without lightly salted fish with onions and sunflower oil or herring under a fur coat. However, not all housewives know how to clean herring, and consider this process very difficult and time-consuming. But having mastered several simple ways of cutting fish, they will be able to regularly delight their household with delicious herring dishes.
How to properly, easily and quickly peel fresh and salted herring: 3 best methods with instructions
Many of us at home, when preparing herring under a fur coat, experience some difficulties. This occurs when cleaning the fish, as well as separating the fillets from the bones.
There are several methods that allow you to separate the fillet from the ridge and small bones.
Instructions:
- In all methods, the same manipulations are carried out at the initial stages. You need to rip open the belly of the herring, but you don’t need to dig deep inside with a knife.
- Simply cut off a thin strip of the belly, placing the herring vertically. It's okay if you cut a little fillet off the bottom. The fact is that there are a lot of small bones in this area, so it will take a very long time to pull them out. The easiest way is to cut off this strip; there are not many fish fillets there.
- After this, start cutting the fins. Next, remove all the insides and cut off the head. Rinse the inside of the fish under cold water. Next you have two options.
- You need to insert your fingers into the slot where the fin was cut out and carefully separate 1 part of the fillet and remove it from the bones.
- This way you will have the boneless fillet in one hand and the backbone and ribs in the other. Now, using exactly the same gentle movement, try to slowly pull out the backbone along with the ribs from another piece of fillet.
- Remove small bones. Next is to remove the skin. It is pulled off like a stocking starting from the tail section. It is necessary to peel off the skin very carefully and slowly.
Herring cleaning
How not to make a mistake with your choice
Before you start cutting the fish, you need to purchase it. The success of the finished dish will depend on the quality of the product. The herring offered for sale comes in two types:
When choosing any of them, you should pay attention to the shelf life and general condition of the product. The first thing to consider is the gills.
In pickled herring, their condition can be determined by their color.
If they are dark red in color and do not crumble, this product is suitable for consumption, but if you find light crumbling organs under the gill capsules, you should not risk purchasing such herring.
In the case of smoked meat, it is difficult to determine the color, so pay attention to the condition of the boxes themselves. They should fit snugly.
If there is a significant visible gap in the place where they fit, you should doubt the quality of this product. Often, especially in the case of smoked herring, sellers offer the fish without a head.
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It’s worth noting right away that this is an initially dubious purchase, since it is the main indicator of freshness. If you still intend to buy it, pay attention to the color - it should be uniform.
There should be no stains on the body, regardless of the method of preparation and processing . Elasticity plays an important role.
If pressing with your finger does not leave a mark on the carcass, then there is a possibility that this product is of high quality.
Buying low-quality, expired fish can cause food poisoning and the entry of dangerous bacteria into the body, such as E. coli or botulism.
To buy quality products, do it in trusted places and pay attention to creating the right conditions for storing them.
If you are confident in the quality of the purchased products, you can start cutting them.
How to cut a herring? Tips, step-by-step instructions.
The composition of meat has a beneficial effect on the circulatory system and is a means of preventing diseases associated with blood vessels, heart, and vision. It has been proven to have a beneficial effect on human intrauterine development.
Expert opinion
Ekaterina Korneva, expert in the field of care, cleanliness and beauty
I will help you understand all the intricacies.
If you show a little patience, you can quickly get high-quality fillets. If your oven has a program such as precision airflow, then it is better to use it. Ways to beautifully cut fish fillets If you have any questions, please contact me, I will be happy to answer!
How to deboned filleted herring in one motion: video
According to the second method of separating the fillet from the bones, you need to do everything exactly the same until the moment when you need to stick your fingers into the hole where the fins were. In this case, you can do things a little differently.
Instructions:
- Once you cut off the fins and remove those innards from the fish, you will need to very carefully remove the skin. This is done starting from the head, in the part where the head was.
- When you remove the skin, you will be left with a fish without a head, skin and entrails, but with bones and a tail. Now you need to separate the fish into two parts by taking it on both sides of the tail and gently pulling it to break it into two parts.
- In one hand you will be left with a boneless fillet with the lower part from the ridge. That is, the abdomen. And in the second part there will be pieces of fillet along with the backbone and ribs.
- Now puts your fingers into the hole where the fins were, carefully remove the strips from the ridge. This way you can separate the fillet from the ribs and backbone.
Massage for fish
This method is based on beating rather than massage, but is known by that name.
“Massage” is needed to make the bones easier to separate from the fillet, but the main thing is not to overdo it, otherwise the flesh will turn into an inedible porridge-like substance.
Yandex pictures
To clean herring using the massage method, you will need:
- Remove the head.
- Make a cut in the abdomen and take out the insides along with the black film. You can rinse with water and then dry well with paper towels.
- Next they begin the “massage”. To do this, the herring must be wrapped in napkins and beaten several times on each side on a hard surface.
Important! Instead of napkins, you can use a bag or cling film.
- Next, you need to remove the paper napkins (or bag), cut off all the fins and tail.
- Place the herring belly down on the board, opening it like a book. Press the fish onto the table and, applying a certain amount of force, move it along the back.
- Turn the fish over, remove the spine by pulling the fin near the tail.
- Check for small bones and, if necessary, remove them with tweezers.
- Once you have finished filleting the herring and removing the bones, you can begin removing the skin. This is done in just one movement in the direction from head to tail (the skin is first cut in the upper part of the carcass).
Using a massage, the herring is cut into one large fillet.
How to remove and remove bones from herring, clean it of small bones?
To prepare Mathieu preserves, or any other canned food, or salt fish, you must complete the following post-cleaning steps.
Herring cleaning
Technology:
- The very first step is removing the skin. The most interesting thing is that this manipulation in many factories is performed manually, since the separator is not sensitive enough to pull off this thin skin.
- Thus, after separating the skin from the fillet, the fish is marinated or salted, sliced, and placed in a container.
- After this, the fish is filled with a solution of citric acid, sugar and spices. Under the influence of citric acid, small thin seeds dissolve.
- Therefore, you eat fish without bones, since the large bones separated initially, and the small ones dissolved under the influence of citric acid.
Making a spicy pickle
The marinade for salting fish is prepared quite quickly. Cold water is boiled, and then table salt, table vinegar, granulated sugar, bay leaf, clove buds, peppercorns, mustard and coriander beans are added to it. After this, the brine is removed from the stove and cooled completely.
For tasty salting of herring, use a large and deep container with a lid. Place all the pieces of processed fish on the bottom of the dish, and then cover them with onion rings and fresh dill. Finally, all ingredients are poured with completely cooled spicy brine. In this form, the fish is tightly covered with a lid and left at room temperature for 5-8 hours. After this, the product is placed in the refrigerator and salted for about another day (the time can be increased to 36 hours).
How to clean and remove herring, remove bones from herring in a factory, production: description, video
Industrial fish cleaning
Many questions arise regarding how herring is cleaned in factories that prepare preserves and preserves, salted herring with mayonnaise or with onions. There is an opinion that fish fillets with bones are soaked in a certain acidic solution. Under the influence of acid, the bones in the fish dissolve, so cleaning, that is, separating the fillet bones, is not necessary.
Indeed, in some factories there is a technique where an acid solution is used and the bones are dissolved. But in some plants, bone removal is done completely differently. For example, at the Banta Bremor plant.
The herring arrives at the enterprise in boxes without a backbone or ribs. All that remains is the fillet, skin and small bones. This is due to the fact that in fish processing plants that catch fish, the backbone and bones are removed. This is done using special equipment, that is, the separation is not done manually, but using special separators.
The fish is fed into the separator, where it is cleaned of entrails, bones, backbone and ribs are removed. This leaves only the skin and small bones.
Cutting using the “4 fillet” method
This method is also known as pulling the herring by the tail. The cutting is quite simple:
- Remove the head from the herring, then cut into the belly and rinse off the entrails. Dry with paper towels.
- Then you need to tighten the skin by making a small cut in the upper part towards the tail.
Important! The tail itself cannot be removed.
- Using a sharp knife, cut the tail in the middle (about 1 cm). Take the resulting ends with both hands, lift the herring above the table and throw it in a circular motion.
- Start pulling the ends in different directions, as a result of which the herring will be divided into 2 parts (back and belly).
- Slowly continue to pull the pieces until 3 pieces remain in your hands. Two of them are the bottom ones, these are ready-made fillets. There is nothing else you need to do with it.
- The top part is a fillet on the bone, which is carefully removed. There are still two pieces of fillet left.
As a result of this cleaning, you actually get 4 small fillets, ready for further use.
Thus, to clean the herring, you can use any available method and even get the desired number of pieces (one, two or all four).
Best tips for cutting fresh and salted fish and filleted herring: list
Unfortunately, at home there is no such equipment and complex devices and separators. Therefore, to prepare fish coats or fish rolls, you have to separate the fish from the bones manually. If you use the methods that we have recommended to you, this will help speed up the cooking process.
Some tips:
- Very often, after cleaning, it is difficult to remove the smell of fish from the cutting board. Therefore, before you clean the product, wrap the cutting board with cling film. After you finish cutting the fish, wrap all the intestines, head, and waste in this film and carefully remove it from the board. All you have to do is rinse it with water and there will be no smell.
- To quickly remove fish odor from your hands, rub them with lemon peel or a lemon wedge. Lemon juice quickly kills the smell of fish.
- To clean the knife, soak it for a few minutes in a weak vinegar solution. This will also help get rid of the fishy smell.
Herring fillet
As you can see, separating the fish from the bones is quite simple. Use our advice and everything will work out. You can prepare excellent fillet for fur coats or sandwiches.
Which herring to choose?
The fresher and larger the fish, the easier it is to separate the bones and skin. When choosing, pay attention: if the gills are reddish and elastic, and the eyes are not cloudy, this is an indicator of its freshness.
The video on our website will help you quickly learn how to peel herring. Cutting may seem difficult only at first. Once you “get a taste” and try cleaning fish several times, you will get the hang of it and stop buying canned herring with vinegar in oil for preparing “shuba” and other dishes.
You can take Pacific, Atlantic or Black Sea herring; its full replacement is mackerel, trout or salmon; dishes with these types of fish will also turn out very tasty.
A very quick way to clean fish using a plastic bag
If it is very difficult to separate the bones from the fish, then an ordinary plastic bag will come to your rescue. It can be used to carefully separate the skin and meat, and the process of cutting fish will become much easier.
To use a plastic bag for cutting fish meat, you need to go through a few basic steps:
- Take the fish carcass and wash it properly. Carefully cut the skin of the fish and separate it from the meat part. Carefully remove the entrails and separate them from the spine. In this case, it is recommended to cut off only the head, but it is best to leave the tail so that the fish does not fall apart prematurely.
- Take the cleaned carcass and rinse thoroughly under running water. After this, place the fish carcass on special paper towels,
- After drying, place the fish carcass on a cutting board and use a knife to lightly cut a small piece of the meat part.
- After this, grab the fish by one side and then pull the other, carefully separating the bones from the meat part. Try not to break the backbone, because otherwise the bones will get stuck in the meat and it will be difficult to pull them out.
- Do the same procedure with one half of the fillet, and then with the other. Do all the steps as carefully as possible, because otherwise some extra bones may get in during the cooking process.
What to do with herring milk: can you eat it?
When cleaning the fish, milk may remain. Unlike caviar, many housewives throw them away because they don’t know what to do with them. Others, having learned that this is the sperm of males, refuse to eat them. However, this product deserves attention because it has many advantages. Herring milk can be fried in batter and added to a salad or used as a filling for a fishburger. They are often placed in fur coats, in addition to fillets. In Finland they don’t ask whether herrings eat milk. Here they are added to the fish soup along with caviar. Using a blender, you can make a paste from the remaining milk. Just add a boiled egg, raw carrots and butter.
Ways to beautifully serve peeled herring on the table
Thinly sliced salted herring fillets can be a good snack. It is served with pickles, pickled mushrooms, black olives and black olives. Fillet is also used for canapés. Small pieces of herring and boiled potatoes are threaded onto a skewer with an onion ring between them. The set of products for this appetizer can be anything; for piquancy, you can add an olive or pickled champignons. If you are in doubt and don’t know how to serve herring, make sandwiches with black bread, butter and herbs. A taste familiar from childhood can delight guests and remind them of family feasts in their parents’ home. An alternative can be rolls, which are made with or without filling.
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