How to clean and cut the pike from the article.
Content
Pike is a tasty and healthy fish from which you can cook a huge amount of delicious delicacies. At the same time, in any case, the fish will need to be cleaned, gutted, and, if necessary, and filter, remove the skin from it.
The process of cutting fish cannot be called simple, it turns out far from always the first time. Despite this, it is possible to cut the pike correctly and beautifully, you just need to try a bit and listen to our advice.
How to clean the pike correctly and quickly?
It is not particularly important whether you bought or caught a pike, the first thing to do with it is to wash and clean it. It should be noted right away that this process is not the most pleasant, since the pike is very slippery due to the presence of mucus on it. This mucus is difficult to wash, not at a time and not to the end, so keep in mind this fact.
Before you start cleaning the pike, prepare everything you need:
- A cutting board, a sharp knife or a special device for cleaning fish.
- Culinary gloves, so that it is easier to hold slippery fish and reduce the chance to get hurt, cut.
- Salt. It must be poured on the tail of fish, in this case it will be easier to hold it for it, it will not slip so much from his hands.
Having prepared everything you need, we proceed to cleaning the fish:
- Wash off as much as possible mucus from fish, stuck, if any, dirt, etc.
- Place the pike in a large cellophane bag or sink filled to half with water. This must be done so that her husk does not fly apart in all directions, since it is very difficult to remove it later, especially if it dries on the surface of something.
- Arm yourself with a knife or a special brush-knit and, moving against scales, clean it. Hold the fish by the tail. Do not forget to clean the pike from scales on the belly and back.
- After that, remove the stuck scales from the fish, wash it.
- Now you need to cut the fins. This can be done with a knife or scissors. Cut them, moving from the tail to the head of the fish.
- Then put the carcass of the fish on the cutting board, its head should lie closer to you. With a sharp knife, pierce the skin under the head of the fish, try to do it so that the knife blade minimally enters the fish, otherwise you can damage the gallbladder, and the fish will become bitter.
- Next, cut the fish to the tail from the hole made, again, try to do it as carefully as possible, do not start a knife in the peritoneum, because you can damage the caviar and intestines, then their contents will fall into the fish cavity.
- Now gently take out the insides of the pike. Cut the fish gills with a knife or scissors and also remove them.
- Then remove the white film along the ridge.
- Wash the pike inside and out, dry with paper towels.
- That's all, the pike is cleansed and can in this form roast, bake, boil, etc.
How to filter the pike correctly and quickly?
To prepare some dishes, it is not enough just to clean the fish and remove the insides from it, it also needs to be filled. It is not difficult to do this at all, this process will take no more than 10 minutes.
- Initially, you need to prepare the carcass as described earlier, that is, clean it from the husk, remove all the insides, etc.
- After that, put the cleaned carcass on the cutting board, for convenience you can cut off your head, tail.
- Now, with a sharp knife, make an incision along the outer part of the carcass along the ridge. There is a fin on the back of the pike, so you need to make an incision above it, so the knife blade will pass along the bones of the ridge and remove the maximum of meat.
- Cut the fillet carefully so as not to damage these bones, otherwise they will remain in the fillet. We cut the fillet from the ridge in the mentioned way along the entire length. It turns out that one fillet will be in your hands, and the second part of the carcass will lie on the table - a fillet on the ridge.
- It remains to separate the second fillet. This is done similarly to how we shot the first fillet. Turn the carcass and cut the fillet from the bones with a sharp knife.
- Since there are a lot of small bones in the pike, they need to choose as much as possible. To do this, you can use the usual cosmetic or special cooking tweezers. Remove the bones, holding the fillet with your hand so that it does not break.
- Thus, you will receive 2 fillets on the skin. At will, the meat can be separated from the skin. To do this, put the fillet with a skin down, tear off the skin from the meat, and then separate it with a knife.
- The head, the bones with the remaining meat on them, the tail should not be thrown away. These parts of the fish can be used for the preparation of fish soup, Yushka, etc.
How to remove the skin from the pike with a “stocking” correctly and quickly?
In order to remove the skin of a “stocking” from the pike, you need to try a bit, because in this process it is very important not to damage the skin and the meat itself. Despite this, it can be removed quite simply if you do not rush and try to do everything as neatly as possible.
- Previously, the fish must be cleaned from scales and washed, the insides and tail do not need to be removed.
- Put the peeled pike on a cutting board, arrange yourself with a sharp knife.
- With the help of a knife, make cuts on the skin near the head, cutting the meat to the ridge. Under your head, make the cuts very carefully and not very deep, since you can hurt the gall bladder.
- Now cut your head with a sharp movement up and, pulling it, remove all the insides. Perhaps the first time you will not be able to do everything carefully, in which case, remove the remaining intestines with your hands. The intestines also need to be cut off from the head, it can be used as a jewelry for a prepared pike dish.
- Next, you can remove the fins on the carcass, however, it is not necessary to do this at all, moreover, many do not do this, since the pike meat is damaged in this way.
- Then you need to do, perhaps, the most difficult work - carefully separate the skin from the meat so that both the skin and the meat remains intact.
- To do this, place your fingers or spoon, the fork in the back of the fish near the skin near the back, separate the meat from the skin. Next, with the help of hands, gradually separate the meat from the skin until you can remove the entire skin as a whole like a stocking.
- Pull the skin to the tail, cut it with the tail there. That is, so that the skin remains with the tail.
- Turn the skin. Ready.
- Next, you need to disassemble the remaining parts of the fish. Most often they are filled, then they make minced meat from fillet, and after it they are filled with a “stocking”, and it is baked.
As you can see, there is nothing very difficult to cut the fish, each time this process will be easier and easier. Therefore, be patient and try, well, and delicious pike dishes will be more even more that your efforts are not in vain.