Smelt cured in the home

As you know, among various snacks for beer , dried fish remains the favorite delicacy . Many have long abandoned harmful chips and crackers, stuffed with dyes, preservatives, flavor enhancers and artificial additives. In fashion, now natural products, including snacks for beer.

Unfortunately, not always fish can be bought in a store in good quality. It comes in either too salty or too old (yellow, "rusty"), or with an unpleasant odor. Take today for example a fish smelt. This small fish has long won the hearts of fans of a foamy drink. However, standing smelt in the store smelt is quite expensive.

How can you save on a snack for beer? The answer is very simple - to buy fresh fish, the price of which does not bite so much, and cook it at home on your own. How do dried smelt in the home - I'll tell you in this article.

Pickling fish

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

The process of salting

Smelt jerky is good because during its preparation you do not need to remove the insides and suffer from scales. Fish will only need to be thawed, rinsed under cold water and put in pre-prepared dishes. Remember that each fish carcass must necessarily be covered with salt. Either dip each in salt, and then put in a bowl, or sprinkle on top and mix thoroughly. It is recommended to lay polyethylene food film over the dishes. Some landladies still put a load on the fish, for example, a three-liter jar of water. But you can not do this. If you cooked the fish correctly, it will salted out well without pressure.

Then comes the waiting phase. First the salt will dissolve, then the fish will give its own juice and in this form will be infused. The waiting time, as a rule, is about twelve hours. That is, if you have salted the fish in the morning, then by the evening you can proceed to the next stage of cooking. To clean fish in the fridge, fearing damage to the product, it is not necessary. Salt will not let it disappear.

After pickling, the fish should be washed. You can try it for salt. If it turned out to be too salty (lying for more than 12 hours), then the fish should be soaked in cold water. To do this, put it in a bulk dish with water and leave it for a couple of hours. In this case, remember that every hour it is recommended to change the water.

Dry the fish

There are several ways that smelt cured in the home is not worse than the store version. Drying salted fish is possible in several ways. Which one to choose is up to you.

Newspaper for fish

Long time fishermen dried fish with the help of an ordinary newspaper. Nowadays, many do exactly the same without using the method of suspension. When you washed the fish, you saved it from excess moisture, it can be dried. A newspaper (any paper) is spread on a wide baking tray, and fish is laid on it. Try not to make fish contact each other. There must be a distance between them.

In this form, the pan with the fish is sent to a well-ventilated place, for example, on the balcony. To smelt the dried smelt, it did not deteriorate during the drying process, it should not be put in a place to which direct sunlight has access. After a day or two, the fish is ready for use.

We use the method of suspension

The most commonly used method of drying fish is hanging on a string or line. Fishermen advise to take a string thicker, so that it can withstand the total mass of the product. We thread the thread in a needle with a big eye and make the fish "pricks" in the eye. Experts do not recommend immediately suspending fish, piercing the tail. During the drying process, water will drain into the most meaty part of the carcass, which in turn will be less dried. It is better to hang it over the head first, and in a day - behind the tail. So the fish dries evenly, the excess fluid will go away correctly, there will be no unpleasant odor.

Remember that the distance between the carcasses should be kept. So you will ensure sufficient air access, proper drying and preservation of the taste qualities of each individual fish.

The suspended fish is dried on a balcony or in any other place with good ventilation. How much will the smelt be cooked? Here everything will depend on your taste preferences. Some people like raw fish, some prefer an almost "oak" dry variant. In any case, before two days later remove the fish from the line is not worth it.

How to store smelt safflower

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

Suspend

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

However, keeping fish in a suspended form should be correct. Better wrap it in a newspaper or paper. You do not need to pack every fish, you can take a "bundle" and wrap it. So the fish will not dry up and will retain its taste for a long time. But remember, if there is at least one spoiled smelt in the bundle, the rest of the fish should not be eaten. Therefore, make a "bundle" small - 5-7 carcasses in one.

Freezing

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

Can

An excellent way to store dried fish is also the use of tin cans. Of course, you can not always find a real tin can, but if you succeed, you are a lucky mistress. Salted, dried smelt is smoked in neat rows in a tin dish. Tightly close the lid and put it in the closet in the kitchen. In this form, without access to sunlight and insects, the fish will survive about three months.

Calorie content of dried fish

Very many people who are on a diet, it seems that eating dried fish is not worth it. However, experts say that dried fish does not harm the lean body at all. Including smelt and cured syrup. Its caloric 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 a couple, can be much more caloric.

In addition, dried smelt is a source of large amounts of protein. It consists of only 5 grams of fat and 0.07 grams of carbohydrates, the rest - protein. One hundred grams of this fish contains about 25 grams of protein. Nutritionists call this combination BJU ideal for those who decided to lose weight. Few products can boast so much protein with a low total caloric value.