Many countries have their own national dishes, but the status of "urban" goodies has a rare dish, and in St. Petersburg, smelt is traditionally such. This small but very tasty fish gave the townspeople a real gastronomic holiday. However, in order to taste the fragrant smelt, it is necessary to cook it, and before that - clean it. And there are three ways to clean smelt.
Pick your recipe
You will need
- - a small sharp knife or scissors,
- - board,
- - running water.
Instruction manual
1
The first way to clean smelt is if you prefer to fry the whole fish. Then you only need to clean it from excess scales. Take the fish by the tail, place under a stream of water a gentle pressure. Move from tail to head on the scales with a knife. The knife must be kept at a slight angle to the body of the fish, so you remove a large amount of scales and then you can use the smelt for frying. Scales from fish must also be removed with subsequent cleaning methods, that is, this is a mandatory procedure.
2
The second way is to remove the insides of the fish, but so that the smelt head remains with it. Clean the smelt from the scales specified in step 1. Take a knife and make an incision from the side of the abdomen in the direction from the tail to the base of the head. From the resulting cut, carefully remove the inside of the fish and rinse the abdomen under running water. Pay attention to small insides that may go unnoticed inside the fish - flush very carefully. If caviar or milk was inside the smelt, then after washing the fish, they can be put back into the abdomen or fried separately.
3
The third way to clean smelt is to remove the entrails with the head. In this case, it is much more advisable to use scissors - this method is most effective, since the use of scissors allows you to leave caviar or milk inside the fish when cleaning, while all unnecessary is removed. Clean smelt of excess scales. Take the scissors and make an incision on the ridge from the back, cutting the bone. The head should be held only in the pectoral fins. Tear off the head and with it pull out all the intestines and other excess fragments. Rinse the smelt under running water. The fish is ready to cook.
note
Despite the appetizing appearance of a completely fried smelt, cooks are advised to still remove the entrails from the fish in order to avoid unpleasant surprises.
Useful advice
To prevent fish from slipping out of your hands when cleaning, rub your fingers with salt.
And when removing the scales, you can use a grater or a scraper instead of a knife - this way the cleaning process will be faster, and you will not splatter the entire kitchen with waste.