How to salt and dry fish correctly

Delicious dried fish is easy to prepare yourself. To do this, you need to know how to dry fish at home. A little hassle, a few days of waiting - and you can enjoy the delicacy yourself, as well as safely treat your guests. Pieces of aromatic dried fish are sure to please everyone.

Sun-dried or dried - what's the difference?

Dried fish is obtained by drying pre-salted raw materials. These are familiar, ready-to-eat products. Many people call dried fish exactly dried. Therefore, asking the question: how to dry fish correctly? - people usually mean how it should be dried.

Dried fish is obtained both from unsalted raw materials (fresh-dried) and from salted fish. Dried fish is considered a semi-finished product that requires further culinary processing. They usually dry it in the northern regions, storing it in reserve for use in the winter. Dried carcasses can be stored for a long time without losing their nutritional qualities.

Selection and preparation of fish

In principle, you can dry any fish at home, but fish that is not too fatty and small in size is best suited for this purpose. The following species can be successfully used for this purpose: roach, bream, sabrefish, podust, rudd, dace, silver bream, perch, ram, pike perch, roach and others.

The raw materials must first be prepared:

Wash the fish well, gut it (without peeling off the scales) and rinse thoroughly again.
If there is a large amount of it, then it is better to sort it by size, since fish of different sizes require different processing times.
Salt the prepared raw materials.

You don’t have to gut the fish, but in this case the finished product will have a bitter taste, which the bile will give it.

Prepared fish can be salted in two ways: dry - by covering the carcasses with dry salt, or wet - in brine (brine).

Dry salting

This salting method is most often used, as it is very simple. The dishes should be chosen so that the carcasses can easily fit in it (a wide pan or cup). You should pour a thin layer of coarse salt on the bottom, lay a row of fish, cover it with salt so that it is completely covered. The next row should be laid on top in the same way. And so you need to lay out the carcasses in rows, generously sprinkling each of them with resin.

After the last row is laid, you need to put a plate or lid on top that fits freely into the pan and press it down with pressure (for example: a jar of water or a weight).

Place the dishes in the refrigerator for 4-7 days (depending on the size of the carcasses). After the specified time has passed, the fish must be taken out, the salt washed off well, and then soaked in water (4-7 hours), changing it several times. In this case, the number of hours is equal to the number of days of salting.

After this, you can dry the fish. It should be hung in a well-ventilated place. In summer you can dry it outside, and in winter a balcony or kitchen is suitable for this. You can dry it on the veranda or in the summer kitchen. The main thing is that it should not be exposed to direct sunlight. Carcasses can be hung by piercing a wire through the eyes, or you can make hooks from paper clips, with which they are hooked onto the upper lip, and the other side is hung on a stretched cord or fishing line. You can hang the fish by the tails, but in this case the fat and juice will flow out, and it will turn out drier and fresher.

Salt in brine brine

This method is also good for home use. It allows you to get evenly salted fish in a shorter period. To do this you need:

Prepare a supersaturated saline solution (brine). To do this, dissolve the salt in water, gradually increasing the concentration. The solution is considered ready if a piece of potato or a raw egg does not sink in it. You will need approximately 1 liter of brine per 2 kg of raw materials.
Pour a thin layer of salt into the bottom of a wide container.
Place the carcasses in a container.
Pour brine so that it covers the fish completely.
Cover with a plate or lid and put pressure on top.
Place the container in the refrigerator for 3-4 days (depending on the size of the fish).
After the required time has passed, remove the carcasses from the brine and soak in clean water for about 30 minutes, changing the water every 10 minutes.

After this, let the water drain and dry, hanging in the same way as with the dry salting method.

How long does it take to dry fish?

Drying time until done depends on the size of the fish and conditions. On average, this is 4-6 days. Outside, blown by the breeze, it dries faster, at home - longer. In winter, in a cool room, this period increases even more. Therefore, after 4-5 days the fish should be tested to see if it is ready. If it is damp on the back, it should be left to dry for another 1-2 days.

It’s very quick and easy to dry fish at home in an electric dryer. Forced ventilation and elevated temperature accelerate the process of dehydration of the semi-finished product. In a standard electric dryer at a temperature of about +55°C, it is dried until ready in only 5-7 hours!

In the northern regions, fish are frozen outside for a month and a half.

Some tips

To prevent insects from landing on the fish during drying in the summer, you can sprinkle it with vinegar or grease it with sunflower oil, or you can make a mixture of them in a 1:3 ratio and grease the fish with it.
For the same purpose, it can be covered with gauze or small tulle.
It is better to hang the finished raw material for drying on the balcony or outside in the late evening, then it will have time to weather and dry before the morning. Flies and wasps will practically not touch it anymore.
To speed up drying and protect against insects, open the bellies by inserting matches with cut heads or short sticks into them.
During dry salting, some carcasses are poorly salted. They can be easily identified - they float during soaking. Such fish must be dried separately and used for food first.
Dried fish should be stored in a cool, dry place, wrapped in parchment paper and cotton cloth, or in a glass jar with a lid. At the same time, it will not lose its properties within 4-5 months.

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