How to properly scale and gut pike perch?

Sometimes housewives have difficulties when it comes to preparing pike perch caught in a pond or purchased at the market. Some people don’t want to deal with this fish at all, since cleaning pike perch is not entirely easy and is even unsafe. But if you consider how tasty and healthy it is, then perhaps it’s worth overcoming the difficulties associated with its preparation in order to please your family with a wonderful fish dish. To do this, you need to figure out exactly what obstacles arise during cleaning this fish and how to deal with them.

Why is it difficult to remove scales from pike perch and what can be used for this?

Pike perch belongs to the fish of the perch family. Its habitats are rivers and various fresh water bodies. Like other members of its family, pike perch differs from many freshwater fish in having hard scales. In addition, it has very spiny dorsal fins, which pose a danger to the hands of those who catch it or try to clean it.

To properly and quickly prepare pike perch for heat treatment, you need to acquire a convenient tool for removing scales. Perhaps your farm has preserved a device designed specifically for this from the times of the Soviet Union. Or maybe you will find such a fish scaler in modern hardware stores or at the market.If this is a difficult question for you, then try peeling off the scales with a knife with serrated edges on the back side or a regular metal fork. There are also many ways how to clean fish from scales quickly and without a knife: for example, scalding with boiling water or cleaning under water.

But the easiest way is to make a fish scaler yourself from scrap materials, similar to a factory product. This can be done in the following ways.

1. Take a metal vegetable grater with small burrs, bend its sides with pliers and attach a wooden handle to it.
2. Screw several beer caps to a wooden spatula (from kitchen utensils), with the teeth facing outward.
3. In the bottom of a tin can, use a nail to punch many holes through the inside, due to which burrs are formed on the outside - the same as on a factory grater. Provide the resulting product with a U-shaped handle made of hard metal, attaching its edges to diametrically opposite sides of the jar walls.

As for the first two options, the tool will be more convenient to use if its working surface is at a slight obtuse angle with respect to the wooden handle.

Scaler

Method of cleaning and cutting this type of fish

To clean pike perch of scales without causing harm to yourself, you must first remove its dangerous fins. You can use special kitchen scissors for this. If this item is not in your household, then use a regular knife, but it is important to sharpen it well. It is better to cut off the spines by capturing the part of the body located at their base. When using a sharp knife, do not point it towards where your hands or other parts of the body are - cut away from you.

Advice

Do not under any circumstances ignore this recommendation regarding the preliminary removal of fins, even when you want to quickly cook pike perch. If you clean off the scales without getting rid of the spines on the back of the fish, then if you get injured on them, you can get a wound that festers for a long time and does not heal, and sometimes blood poisoning.

Having freed yourself from the fins, you can safely begin to remove the scales, using one of the options for the tool mentioned above.

To do everything correctly, you need to follow these steps (for right-handers):

• grab the pike perch with your left hand by the tail,
• take the cleaning device in your right hand,
• moving the tool in the direction from the tail to the head, tear the body of the fish until you free it from scales.

Advice

To prevent the fish from slipping in your hand during cleaning, you can rub it with salt before doing so.

The procedure for removing scales from pike perch has another negative consequence. No matter what device you use to clean this fish, the scales will scatter, littering the surrounding space. But this can be avoided by applying one of the following recommendations.

• If you catch the fish yourself, clean it right on the shore of the reservoir, without bringing garbage into your home.
• If you decide to do this at home, then clean it in water.
• You can also clean pike perch by placing your hands inside a plastic bag.

Whichever of the listed methods you choose, you will save time and effort that would have to be spent on cleaning, especially if you need to process more than one fish. Having removed the scales from the pike perch’s body, you can begin to extract its entrails.

The sequence of this procedure is as follows.

• Take the fish by the head with your left hand (for right-handers), placing it belly up, while hooking your thumb on the gills. This will make it easier to hold it in the desired position.
• Take a sharp knife in your right hand so that its blade “looks” up.
• Holding the knife at a slight angle to the surface of the fish's body, pierce its belly between the gills and split it open, moving the tool towards the base of the caudal fin.
• Remove the innards, setting them aside, and rinse the pike perch under running water, inside and out.

All that remains is to separate the fat from the extracted entrails, if there is a lot of it, as well as milt or caviar, if they are in the fish, and throw away the rest. After this, the cleaned and gutted pike perch and its edible contents can be used to prepare a variety of delicious dishes.

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