Salting herring at home

Herring is one of the most accessible varieties of fish, especially in raw form. For some reason, it undeservedly does not use the attention of customers, and completely in vain. It can be cooked in exactly the same way as any other fish - for example, it is very tasty in fried form, its meat is juicy and aromatic, although the herring fish soup has an overly intense fishy smell, and therefore the dish turns out, to put it mildly, into Lover. The absolute leader among herring preparation methods is its salting, but most buyers prefer to purchase salted herring in stores, and, among other things, salting herring at home - it's very simple, fast and tasty. As is known, in our time a rare producer can resist the temptation to add to this product one or another ingredient that improves the taste of the product, prolongs the shelf life or simply provides an attractive appearance, and yet the effect of these substances on the body is not fully understood. In addition, some completely safe components can react with each other to form toxic compounds - this is especially true for vacuum packages and preserves, and it is in this form that most of the salted fish are sold. This can be avoided by salting the countryside at home.

So, salting herring at home, in the first place, requires that raw materials be of high quality. Since the vast majority of fish are sold frozen, you need to choose one that would be thawed the least number of times, ideally - never. This can be determined by the appearance of the fish and by the smell. The more "new" the fish looks like, the less temperature and physical impact it has been exposed to, and it should smell like fish, not the specific smell of the refrigerator. The color of fresh herring should be gray-silver, without any yellowness. Fatiness of herring can be determined by the thickness of the back, and the presence of caviar - on the thickness of the abdomen, however, it is unlikely to be able to guess the sex.

Salting herring in homes is usually done in brine. Depending on the desired result, the brine may have a greater or lesser concentration of salt. It is also possible to regulate the ambassador during the time of finding the herring in the brine - the longer it stays in it, the more intense it will be. Among the herbs traditionally used for pickling herring are bay leaf, black pepper, sweet pepper, sometimes cinnamon, mustard, coriander, cumin, ginger. You can pickle the countryside at home, using the prepared seasoning, dissolving it in the necessary amount of water. Classic brine for herring is prepared as follows: in the required amount of water, brought to a boil, salt is added until part of it settles at the bottom - the chemists call it a saturated solution, and in the food industry - a brine. When it is slightly cool, add the spices, per liter of water - about three pieces of bay leaf, three to five peas of sweet pepper, seven pieces of black. In principle, the amount of spices can be arbitrary, they may not even be at all - as someone likes. Also, for a more intense taste, the brine can be boiled with spices, but they will somewhat change their flavor. Then the enameled ware with a wide bottom is taken, it is put in the previously defrosted fish, and everything is poured with brine so that the fish is completely covered with liquid. You can put the fish under oppression, and you can do without it - so it will reap a little longer.

What is good about salting herring at home is that the salting intensity can be adjusted at your own discretion. Lightly salted herring is obtained already on the second day of salting, and for more salted herring will have to wait a little more. You can try the fish when the brine turns brown - this means that the salting process takes place properly. This recipe also allows salting herring at home in the form of fillets or slices - then the final product is obtained in a matter of hours.