How to quickly clean fish from scales: useful tips

Thursday, as you know, is considered a fishing day. A few decades ago, on this day, fish dishes were served in canteens and buffets. This is due to the norms of healthy nutrition - fish should be in the diet at least once a week. Modern housewives monitor the health of their families and also try to adhere to the rules of healthy eating. But often the mere thought of long-term cleaning of fish, stained kitchen and spreading scales can repel all culinary zeal. And at dinner again served anything, but not a fish dish.

Is the devil so terrible as he is painted? Is it really difficult to clean the fish? Is there really no way to help us clean the fish quickly and without problems? After cleaning the fish, do you need to flush the entire kitchen from the scales that are scattered in all directions? This is not true! Let's try to understand everything in order.

The classic way of cleaning fish

1. In general, fish is easier to clean if it is fresh. Therefore, if your faithful came from fishing, it is better to start cleaning the entire catch at once and only then place the fish in the freezer for storage. It is even better to clean the fish right next to the pond - the risk of soiling the kitchen is minimal.
2. If the fish is very slipping in your hands - sprinkle it with salt. This will facilitate the cleaning process.
3. Carefully cut off all fins except the tail. Without a tail, cleaning fish will be much more difficult. The fins are cut to avoid injury - in some species of fish these fins are quite sharp.
4. The next stage - the purification of fish scale. To do this, take a large, sharp knife. The larger the knife, the easier it is to clean it. Put the fish on a cutting board, hold the tail with one hand. With a second hand with a knife, rid the fish of scales by swiping from tail to head, that is, against the arrangement of scales.
5. If the scales spread throughout the kitchen, you can type some water in the sink and put the fish in the water. Clean the scales under water so that it does not fly apart.
6. When all the scales are cleaned, rinse the fish with water. The next stage is gutting. To do this, take a thin knife, which should be very sharp. Spread the fish belly from the head to the rear lower fin.Carefully remove the insides of the fish and try to peel off the thin film that covers the belly from the inside. When removing the insides, be careful with the gallbladder of the fish - do not damage it. Otherwise, the fish may acquire an unpleasant bitter taste.
7. When gutting, pay attention to the contents of the belly. Sometimes there may be caviar, which does not need to throw out in any case.
8. If according to a culinary recipe it is planned to cook the fish entirely (along with the head), then you need to remove its gills.
9. Do not forget to wash the fish again after cleaning.
10. If you are not going to bake the whole fish, and want to fry it in slices, then it must be cut. First, cut off the head and tail. The remaining part is cut in small segments. Then the fleshy part of the fish is cut, then with a sharp blow of a knife you need to break the spine of the fish at the point of cutting. Then the rest of the fish is cut.
11. If you need fish fillets, do not chop them across. You need to take the fish by the tail and with a sharp knife cut the flesh along the carcass, as close as possible to the ridge. You will have two halves - on one spine and ribs, and on the second only ribs.After this, the ribs and large bones are easily removed. Then the fillet is cut in portions - into pieces of the desired size.
12. If you plan to cook fish cakes, along with the bones you need to clean the fish and skin.

After that, the fish can be sent to the pan, in the oven or pan.

How to clean different types of fish

Cleaning fish depends on its type. Some types of fish generally can not be cleaned, for example, salmon or goby. They are fried along with the scales, because it is quite soft and small.

Other species of fish are cleaned with the complete removal of their skin, for example, catfish, burbot, eel. To do this, make a small cut at the head of the fish and pull the skin in one motion.

Some fish (for example, crucian carp) are cleaned very easily, with the help of fingers. To do this, you just need to thoroughly wash the crucian with a stream of water. And if you pour small fish of any kind with salt, the scales will go away without any problems.

Pike, perch and pikeperch can be scalded with boiling water. To do this, clean fish should be dipped in boiling water for a while. Blanching time depends on the size and freshness of the fish and can vary from 30 seconds to three minutes. It is very important not to digest the carcass, otherwise the scales will move along with the boiled meat.

If you decide to cook a tench, then you must first thoroughly rinse it from the mud and mucus. If this does not help, put the washed fish in the sink and pour boiling water over it. You will immediately see how the mucus begins to curl up, like egg white. After that, the fish just need to wash. Some believe that it is not necessary to remove the scales from the tench, they say, it is so thin that it simply dissolves in the ear. If the smallest particles bother you, you can drop the line in boiling water for a minute and remove the scales along with the skin.

If the river fish smells of mud, and you are afraid that after cooking, the smell will remain, you need to leave the washed fish carcass in salt water for a couple of hours. And just before cooking, pour the fish with lemon juice. And then you only get the pleasant, appetizing flavor of cooked fish.

How to clean fish quickly and easily

We have collected some more tips for you so that cleaning fish is really fast and comfortable.

1. Some clean the fish with a float. It is very convenient, besides, the scales do not fly away by half a meter. Take the usual grater, and better than four side - it is easier to hold in your hands.Carefully float fish against scales.
2. If the fish is not needed right now, it can be pre-salted. Just sprinkle the carcass with salt, place in a plastic container and leave in the refrigerator until morning. In the morning the scales go away with the skin.
3. Fish can be pre-frozen. This will facilitate the cleaning process. Leave the fish in the freezer for a day, and then take it out. In an hour, when the scales have already melted, and the fish itself is still frozen, it will be very easy to clean it.
4. Most dining sets have a special knife for cleaning fish. Its jagged edges do everything for you - it's a pleasure to clean the fish in this way.
5. In the hardware stores today there are a huge number of newfangled devices for quick and safe cleaning of fish. This is a cutting board with a special clip that secures the tail of the fish. And the universal fish scaler, which is a plane with sharp notches.
6. In marching conditions, when there is no knife at hand, the fish can be easily cleaned with a metal spoon or fork.
7. If with any kind of cleaning scales spreads throughout the kitchen, you can use a plastic bag.Put the fish in there and clean it right in it. After this, the bag can be thrown away with the scraped off scales.
8. In field conditions, the fish can be attached to the board for easy cleaning using a regular nail or an awl.
9. To make fish of any kind easier to clean, a stick or toothpick is inserted into its mouth so that the mouth of the fish is opened all the way.
10. To clean quickly, pre-stretch the fish "to the crunch." To do this, fasten it with a nail or a clip in the area of ​​the tail, and with the second hand pull the carcass behind the eyes. After the characteristic crunch to clean the fish will be much easier.
11. If there is nothing on hand to clean the fish, you can use a piece of tin, a small bar and a nail. Make holes in the tin with a nail so that all the notches look in one direction. Beat the tin flat side of the bar and get a ready tool for cleaning fish.
12. Fish can be cleaned with a piece of wood and several beer caps. Nail the covers to the tree so that the sharp part looks out. Fish is cleaned with this tool quickly, easily and efficiently.

Our simple tips will help you make complex things easy.

Cleaning fish is a rather unpleasant task, perhaps one of the most unpleasant processes in all cooking. However, it is not worth it because of this to abandon the delicious fish dishes. Clean fish easily, quickly and comfortably!

Video: how to clean fish from scales