It’s not enough to buy, you also need to know how to clean sturgeon. Sturgeon fish differs from other fish species because it does not have a bony skeleton and is covered with several rows of bony plates called scutes.
How to clean small sturgeon fish
If the fish is not very large, for example, like sterlet, then first it is better to pour boiling water over it. This simple operation washes away the mucus from the fish and the side bone bugs come off more easily.
If you cook the sterlet whole, then first remove the side and abdominal bugs. This is best done with a large chef's knife or the largest one you have in your kitchen.
Carefully cut off the back bugs, being careful not to damage the flesh. If you're afraid it won't work, just leave them and cook with the bugs. They can be easily removed after cooking.
Then cut the belly of the fishermen, remove the entrails and remove the visigu (dense cartilage that replaces the spine), prying it off with a special needle. If you don’t have such a needle, you can use a sharp knife with a thin, narrow blade.
Rinse the gills and the fish thoroughly.
How to handle large sturgeon
- Large sturgeon fish are processed differently.
- Pull back the pectoral fin.
- Using a knife, cut through the skin and flesh to the cartilage on both sides.
- Then cut the cartilage and separate the head.
- Using a large knife, cut off the dorsal bugs along with a strip of skin and remove the fins, except the tail one.
- At the tail, cut the flesh around the vizig and pull it out by the tail. Pull carefully so as not to tear. You can remove the vizig from the inside or after layering.
- Flatten the fish, cutting along the back into two halves. If the fish is very large, then cut each part into several more pieces. Then place each piece, skin-side, in boiling water for 3 minutes.
The flesh of the fish should be above the water
- After scalding, scrape the remaining side and abdominal bugs from the skin.
- Finally, rinse the cut fish with cold water.
And now you can cook fish any way you like.
The fish, which belongs to the sturgeon family, has long been valued for its unique taste and delicate texture of meat. If you know how to clean sterlet, sturgeon and their closest “relatives”, you can get a preparation for a real delicacy. Proper manipulation will allow you to finish off not only meat with unique characteristics.
Almost all parts of sterlet can be used in cooking. Moreover, even those that are otherwise regarded as garbage. At the same time, the approaches to processing carcasses are quite simple. You just need to follow the sequence of manipulations and strictly follow the recommendations drawn up by professionals.
Features of cleaning sterlet
To clean, you will need the sterlet itself, a cutting board, a large sharp knife, a colander and hot water.
- Rinse the fish under cool running water and place on a board. We use a knife to separate the head from the body; to do this, you will have to cut through the dense cartilage, which is located under the pectoral fins.
- There are sharp spines on the back of the sterlet, which can cause injury during the cleaning process. It is better to immediately cut them off with a knife or scissors. Now we begin to remove the ossified scales using a knife. We move from the tail towards the head.
- At the next stage, the sterlet is gutted. To do this, you need to cut the abdomen and remove all the insides from it.
Tip: From the head of a sterlet you can prepare the most different dishes. If it is planned to be used, the eyes and gills should be removed. After this, the product must be put into use immediately. Otherwise, it needs to be frozen.
- One of the key points is the removal of the vizigi - this is a thin cord that is located along the spine. We make two circular or transverse cuts - in the head and tail area. We turn the tail around its axis until the white “lace” stands out clearly. It needs to be picked up and pulled out using a knitting needle or needle. The tail is completely separated, sent to the head or thrown away.
- It is customary to remove the skin from sterlet. To do this, grab a piece of skin from the tail part and begin to pull it towards the head. If difficulties arise during the manipulation, scald the carcass with hot water, then the process will go faster and easier.
- Be sure to cut the cleaned fish into pieces 2 cm thick, make cuts perpendicular to the spine and place them in a colander with their backs up. Scald the workpieces with boiling water and wait for the liquid to drain. If this procedure is not followed, the sterlet may become deformed during subsequent heat treatment. Often protein clots appear on its surface.
The cleaning process is completed. Now you need to immediately start preparing the planned dish. Fins, head and tail can not only be put on the ear. These ingredients make excellent fish casseroles. In addition, they can be smoked or stewed in the oven.
Rules for cleaning sturgeon
Due to the fact that many housewives do not know how to clean sturgeon, they have to give up delicious fish kebabs, salted fillets, and tender baked meat. But the process is quite simple and does not cause much trouble. In addition to the fish itself, you only need to prepare a knife, a board and a little boiling water.
- Finding fresh sturgeon today is not so easy; most often you have to deal with a frozen product. It is better to carry out the pre-treatment process in the fresh air (at least, at room temperature with access to air), using dishes from which water will constantly drain. If you violate the defrosting technique of a component, its skin will crack and it will not be as good for baking.
Tip: If the fish is fresh and even still alive, it is not necessary to kill it. It is enough to send the individual to the freezer for 1 hour. She will fall asleep and you can calmly carry out all the necessary manipulations.
- If the sturgeon is baked, there is no need to clean it. It is enough to cut off the sharp spines on the fins. In young individuals, these formations can be easily ground off with thick brushes or special knives for cleaning fish.
- But if the component needs to be cut before heat treatment, salted or pickled, you will have to carry out a few more manipulations. The sturgeon has no scales, and its skin looks like sandpaper. First, place the specimen in a colander and scald with boiling water. Then we rip open her abdomen and remove all the insides. We rinse the workpiece with cold water, removing blood clots. We extract the caviar or milk and salt it.
- Remove the gills from gutted fish. Now we remove the squeak by making two cuts in the head and tail sections. We pull the white lace through the cut on the tail. The main thing is not to disrupt your education. Although the negative effect of the component on the human body has not been documented, during heat treatment it noticeably increases in size, causing the meat to deform and the skin to burst.
- Next, the final processing of the component is carried out, during which, depending on the recipe, the fins and skin are removed, and the head is cut off. The skeletal system of fish is represented by cartilage, which does not need to be removed. If the product is baked entirely, then they try to preserve its appearance as much as possible; this will not affect the taste of the product.
Fish from the sturgeon family have a special taste, so you should not try to prepare complex dishes from them. The fewer additional ingredients are used, the more pleasure you can get from consuming the product.
Many people are madly fond of fish and seafood. A skilled housewife can prepare truly royal dishes from sturgeon.
Who is sturgeon
Sturgeon, just like the well-known sterlet or beluga, belongs to the sturgeon family. It is almost impossible to buy such a delicacy caught in natural habitats. Industrial fishing for this fish is prohibited, since individuals reach maturity only in the 8th year of life, and the species was endangered. For sale, sturgeon is raised in specialized freshwater nurseries and sold live. When buying fish, you should not pay attention to the fins, as they are always dark in color. The average weight of an adult sturgeon ranges from 15 to 30 kg, but young individuals weighing about 3 kg are put up for sale.
Skin growths
Cutting sturgeon begins with its preliminary freezing, for which the carcass must be placed in the refrigerator for a couple of hours or kept in the freezer for about an hour, but no more, otherwise it can be frozen. It is slightly more convenient to cut up and remove excess congealed blood.
After it is frozen, the cutting of the sturgeon begins. To do this, cut off the head along with the head fins. It should be borne in mind that raw fish contains vizig, which is poisonous to the human body. Moreover, its intestines are a carrier of spore-forming bacilli, so it is very important to learn how to clean sturgeon correctly. Everyone can learn this.
After the sturgeon's head is cut off, carefully rip open the belly with a sharp knife along the entire body to the anal fin and take out the entrails. We do this carefully, trying not to crush the gallbladder, since bile is poisonous to humans. If there is caviar, it is separated from the rest of the entrails and washed with water.
If we talk about how to clean sturgeon safely, it is better to do it with gloves to avoid getting puncture wounds. The growths along the body of the fish can be easily cut off with a regular knife, as well as the dorsal ones, and to remove the plaques it must be doused with boiling water.
There is no need to peel the scales as with other fish; the skin is also not removed, especially when cooking over an open fire. This completes the cutting of the sturgeon, now all that remains is to cook it.
Viziga (vyziga)
The viziga, or elmfish, is the dorsal chord (veins) running through the vertebral cartilage of the fish. Cutting sturgeon differs from cleaning other fish in that it is imperative to remove the vizier from it. If it is not pulled out immediately, it begins to secrete poison. After heat treatment, it acquires a gelatinous state.
If you need to preserve the whole carcass, then in order to remove the vizig, two cuts are made - one along the head to the vertebral cartilage, and the second along the tail, breaking the vertebra. At the site of the break, a white vizig will be visible, about 3 mm in diameter, and it must be slowly pulled out so as not to tear it. If the carcass is to be cut into pieces, then it is even easier to pull out the scoundrel - you need to cut off the head and tail, turn the carcass perpendicularly, and it will slip out.
Head and fins
After cutting off the sturgeon's head along with the pectoral fins, it is necessary to remove the gills (gill membranes that are attached to the intergill opening, but do not form folds). You can make a delicious fish soup from the head.
The easiest way to prepare fish soup from a sturgeon head is to chop it in half, rinse it under running water, put it in a saucepan, pour boiling water over it, add salt, spices, pepper, carrots, the whole onion and cook for about 30 minutes (until the meat starts to come away from heads). You need to remove the head, strain the broth, add potatoes, pearl barley, etc. to taste.
Sturgeon dishes
The methods for preparing sturgeon are no different from preparing other types of fish. It can be baked in the oven, boiled fish soup or barbecued, fried in a frying pan or grill, steamed or used as a filling for baked goods. And what kind of cutlets and lula-kebabs it makes! Given the bright taste, fat content and the absence of small bones, the fish becomes ideal for any dish.
One of the most delicious and beautiful dishes on the festive table has always been. To do this, the whole carcass (with head and tail) needs to be cut up as indicated above, the insides should be pulled out, making an incision from the anal fin towards the head. Any filling can be placed into the resulting niche, for example, potatoes, carrots and herbs (the filling must be ready). The cut should be sewn up with thread, the top of the sturgeon carcass should be salted, peppered, coated with spices or mayonnaise and baked in the oven for 30 minutes in foil. Then the foil should be removed and baked without it to obtain a golden brown crust.
No matter how you prepare sturgeon, the dish will definitely delight you and your loved ones with its unsurpassed taste.
Sturgeon, sterlet, beluga, stellate sturgeon and bester belong to the sturgeon family.
This freshwater fish, the meat of which is a delicacy. Currently, industrial fishing of these fish species (except for sterlet and bester) is completely prohibited. They are bred artificially in freshwater reservoirs. They are always sold alive, and if you want to treat yourself to a delicious dish, you will have to try.
These types of fish are very similar and are cut in the same way. I’ll tell you using the example of sterlet. First you need to put her to sleep; to do this, just put her in the freezer for 1 hour. The main thing is not to forget. Well, or for a couple of hours in the refrigerator.In principle, you don’t have to clean the fish, but cook it with the skin, which will come off nicely later, but you can also try it for your loved ones. In general, how to clean sturgeon river fish No need, although the skin feels like sandpaper. It is enough to cut off the growths on the skin - they are called “bugs” - a row on the back and sides. We cut off the dorsal bugs with a knife,
and we clean off the side ones, like the scales of an ordinary fish, from the tail to the head. Next, you must gut the sterlet and remove the gills.
Well, there is one more small nuance left - to get the vizig (or vyzig). What is viziga? This is because sturgeons do not have vertebrae; they are replaced by cartilage. No vertebrae means there is not a single bone. Instead of a central ridge, there is also cartilage, inside of which there are veins. These same veins are the viziga. It must be taken out so as not to tear it. When the viziga is boiled it turns into a gelatinous white mass. In the old days, it was used as a filling for pies. Why take out viziga if it is edible and boils soft? And then, if you don’t get this very vizig from fresh sturgeon fish right away, then the meat is dangerous - it becomes poisonous. How was vizigu used for filling, you ask? They didn’t just take it out, but also cleaned it of its internal contents (from the “creaking”). Then you can eat it and they say it’s even healthy. I won’t bake pies, so less words and more action.
This is done as follows: we make two cuts - at the tail of the fish and at the head. In depth - to the middle. The viziga is white and will be visible.
Let's take our time. That's all. Don’t forget to rinse the fish well under cold water and you can start preparing it: bake it, cook fish soup from it, etc.
About 5 years ago I made fish soup. Everything is according to the “classics”: first the roach, crucian carp and bream. Then a couple of small carp, about a kilogram each. After that, 2 sterlets, about a kilogram each (we specially went to the nursery and brought them alive, taking crushed ice). I didn’t delete Vyaziga: no matter how much I tried to figure out where it was, I couldn’t. The hot one had a good taste, although with some strange tint. Knowing that if it sits, it will taste much better cold, so I left it overnight. And it was fatal: I’ve probably never tried such strychnine in my life.
Thanks a lot. I just did everything as written. The friend who brought me this sturgeon from the tundra said that this is exactly what should be done.
March 22, 2016 at 10:02
My husband and I had a fight to the death! Until I went into a search engine and poked my nose in! He didn’t know what a viziga was, but the fishermen in their own way call it “thread”! So he was looking for this thread.
March 25, 2016 at 02:45
They also brought us fresh sturgeon and first of all they told us to remove the “cord” that runs from head to tail. At first they didn’t know how to approach this fish. I didn’t take the knife in any way. Fortunately, the belly was ripped open (apparently someone had already taken away the caviar). We started looking for this “cord”, to no avail. And no, open the Internet and read)) we were exhausted with it, in the end they completely cut out the ridge, and only then, the husband realized what kind of cord it was. It really is where the spine should be. Approximately 1 cm thick, white. It’s dragging, not to say it’s easy. Apparently we need to get better at this. But what they say is true that you can’t cook with this thing. Poisonous!
According to the processing method, fish are divided into three groups: scaly, scaleless and sturgeon. Fine-scaled fish (navaga, burbot) are processed in the same way as scaleless fish. The workshop should have chef's knives, hand scrapers, sieves, mortars, hoes, cauldrons with grates, baking sheets, trays and buckets.
Primary processing of fish consists of the following operations: thawing, soaking, cutting, preparation of semi-finished products. Butchering refers to the removal of scales, entrails, fins, head, bones and skin.
Sturgeon fish differs from other types of fish in that it does not have a bony skeleton and its surface is covered with several rows of bone plates - bugs
Fish of the sturgeon family, with the exception of sterlet, are commercially produced completely gutted. Natural freezing of uncut sturgeon during ice fishing is allowed
Frozen sturgeon, stellate sturgeon and beluga are defrosted in air at room temperature.
Defrosting lasts 6 - 10 hours depending on the size of the fish.
When processing a fish, the head with pectoral fins and bones of the shoulder girdle is first separated by two oblique cuts along the gill covers
After this, the dorsal bugs with the dorsal fin are cut off from the fish, the anal and pelvic fins are removed along the line of their base at the level with the skin, the caudal fin is separated in a straight line perpendicular to the spine at the level of the beginning of the rays, and the vizig is removed.
Then the fish is sliced into sections, starting from the head, along the back in the middle of the fat layer. After lamination, the links are cleaned, blood clots are removed and washed.
Links large fish, especially beluga, are cut into two to four parts in the longitudinal and transverse directions, depending on the size of the fish. The weight of the pieces should be no more than 4 - 5 kg, and the length should be 50 - 60 cm. Such pieces are convenient for cutting into portions.
Further processing of the links depends on their culinary use.
To cook the whole links, they are first scalded and cleaned of lateral, abdominal and small bone bugs.
After cleaning, the fish is washed with cold water, also washing off the protein clots that form on the surface. To maintain their shape during the cooking process, the links are tied with twine
For frying, poaching in whole form or in portioned pieces with or without skin, the cartilage is cut off from the links, then scalded and cleaned of bugs.
Portioned pieces are scalded again before heat treatment. To do this, they are lowered for 1 - 2 minutes. into water with a temperature of 95 - 97 ° C (3 - 4 liters per 1 kg of fish). After scalding, the pieces are washed in water. Losses due to scalding are 10 - 15%.
After thawing, the sterlet, without scalding, is cleaned of bugs, the abdomen is cut, and the entrails, gills and viz are removed. In sterlet intended for poaching as a whole, the dorsal bugs are separated after heat treatment, and in sterlet intended for boiling, poaching and frying in portions - before heat treatment. To prepare portioned pieces, the gutted sterlet is flattened after removing the dorsal bugs, and then cut crosswise into pieces.
We can display a schematic sequence
Defrosting in air - removing the head with the pectoral fin - cutting off the dorsal bugs - removing the fins - removing the vizig - dividing the fish into links - scalding - cleaning from the side, abdominal and small bugs - washing - tying the links before cooking - cutting off cartilage and cutting into portions for frying - secondary scalding
This is what sturgeon fry look like
control over the individual
Ready to use
we begin to butcher
Cutting off the bugs
remove skin
