Dried fish is an excellent appetizer for cold beer in the hot season, however, in stores it is not always possible to buy really high-quality and tasty goods. Therefore, the fish is often dried at home, resulting in a tasty and fresh snack - however, for its preparation you need to follow a few basic rules.
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Preparation for drying
To prepare the fish for drying, rinse it under cold water and gently gut it, then put it in a plastic or enamel bowl (do not use metal containers). Pre-cover the bottom of the dishes with an approximately 2-3 mm layer of coarse salt and lay the fish carcasses in dense layers - tummy to tummy, tail to head. Sprinkle the first layer of fish with a large amount of salt and lay on top of the second row of fish - while the last fish layer should be completely covered with salt. Having salted all the fish, cover the dishes with a lid, the diameter of which is slightly smaller than the diameter of the dishes themselves.
To give future dried carcasses a special taste and aroma, put several bay leaves and spices between their layers that are suitable for fish.
Place a load weighing up to two kilograms on the lid of the dishes and place a container with salted fish in a cold, dark place - for example, in a cellar or on the bottom shelf of a refrigerator. Leave the fish there for three days, then remove it from the dishes and wash thoroughly under running cold water from mucus and salt. If you want to get a slightly salted snack, rinse the fish for 10-15 minutes, and then leave it in a colander so that the glass water naturally. After that, dry the fish with paper towels and go directly to the drying process.
Fish drying
To dry the prepared fish, take fishing line, rope, simple paper clips or hooks that can be independently made of elastic steel wire in the shape of the letter Z. Pass the rope or hook through the lower lip or eye of the fish - so all its internal fat will remain inside it, in As a result, the dried snack will turn out to be more tender and juicy, and not as hard as the sole. Having strung all the carcasses, hang them in any well-ventilated place - for example, in a city apartment you can dry your fish on the balcony, and in a country house an ideal solution would be a forest or a garden. At the same time, hang out the fish only in dry and warm weather, as precipitation and high humidity will make it saturated with moisture and frozen.
Do not dry the fish on the balcony if freshly washed laundry is hung on it, it will be saturated with a fishy smell that will weather out of it for a very long time.
Usually, the fish is dried qualitatively in five to nine days, however, if desired, this process can be significantly accelerated. To do this, hang the fish over a gas stove at a height of at least 80 centimeters from the burners - if you hang it lower, the fish will boil and lose its taste obtained in the process of salting. When using this method, you will get a delicious dried fish in just a few days - wrap the finished snack in cellophane film and put it on the middle or lower shelf of the refrigerator. It can be stored there for quite some time - the main thing is not to put it in the freezer, where the fish will freeze and soak in icy moisture, after which the beer snack will be very, very mediocre.