How to dry a fish or a recipe for a perfect snack for beer

Perhaps there is no snack more suitable for ice-cold beer than a well-worn fish. You can prepare it yourself, just know a few basic rules, and you will become an expert in how to dry fish. It is about these rules that we will discuss below.

So, first of all, not every kind of fish is suitable for this type of cooking. It is necessary to dry the fish of the following varieties: bream, catfish, asp, sheep, chicken, fish, pike perch, salmon, bleak and some others. The main thing here is the degree of fat content of fish and its size. Too large fish - not an ideal option, it is best to take medium or small.

The second important point is salt. Many mistakenly believe that its main purpose in how to properly dry the fish is to create a brine. In fact, the salt is designed to dry the carcass by drawing a maximum of moisture out of it. Therefore, the fine salt will not work - it will dissolve too quickly and will not be able to give the fish the necessary dryness. The opposite effect has a large salt - it dissolves slowly enough, and during this time manages to draw out of the fish the necessary amount of moisture. The average consumption of salt is 1.2-1.5 kg per 10 kg of fish. It is this proportion that is considered suitable.

Before starting to dry, fish should be prepared. For this, it is washed, but not gutted and not scraped. Evisceration of too large specimens is possible, which may not last till the end, but in this case the process is performed exclusively through the back, because abnormality of the abdomen makes the dried fish tasteless, dry, and often even unfit for food. Wash the fish dry with a clean rag, and begin to start the cooking process.

By the way, the very important moment of how to dry the fish correctly is the choice of the season. The best time is the beginning and middle of spring. At this time, there is not yet an abundance of flies, air temperature does not contribute to the development of putrefactive processes, and besides in the diet of herbivorous fish there is still not a huge amount of algae. All this makes it possible to bring the fish drying process to near perfection in spring.

When the fish is prepared, take a capacious dish and put the carcasses there so that the abdomen is on top. Pour out a large salt in the above proportion, distribute it on the scale (small specimens can simply be folded in layers, copiously covered with salt). Then put on top of the wooden yoke, press down the dishes with the fish and send to a cool place. About a day there will be a brine, which should not be drained from two to five days, depending on the size of the fish. At the end of this period, the brine is drained and the fish is placed in a dish with clean water.

At this stage, the main thing you need to know about how to dry fish is that it should be removed from the water as soon as it starts to float, otherwise it will get too wet. After that, it should be spread out on dry rags or paper to dry it.

Further dry scales it is necessary to grease with a light solution of vinegar or sunflower oil - this will scare away the main enemies of good dried fish - flies. Ideal option will be the creation of a special wooden box for drying, in which the sides will be protected with gauze.

After this, the carcass should be weighed. For this, a strong twine is passed through the eye sockets, and the fish hangs on it at a distance of about five centimeters from each other. A very important factor in how to dry fish of large size is the way of hanging - it twine or rope is not passed through the eye sockets, but through the hole made in the tail part. Thanks to this, all excess fluid is removed through the mouth opening, and the fish becomes ideal.

Fish are prepared from two weeks to a month, depending on the variety and size.