Many housewives buy ready-made salted or smoked mackerel in the store. However, if you care about your health and the health of loved ones, prepare the right food from natural products, not semi-finished products, then in this recipe you will learn how to pickle mackerel at home. Start with the selection of fish. Choose a large mackerel, with silvery skin and a thick back. On the abdomen there should be no yellow spots of the so-called “rust”, which gives fatty fish a rancid taste and an unpleasant smell. Although sellers in the market often say that it is fat - do not believe it!
So, the choice is made, now you need to defrost it properly. It is better to salt the slightly frozen fish, the fillet will remain whole. Leave the mackerel for 1 hour at room temperature - it will thaw, but not completely.
3-4 days after salting you can make fish sandwiches using homemade mackerel salted.
- Preparation time: 20 minutes
- Cooking time: 3-4 days
- Quantity: 2 pcs.
Ingredients for salting mackerel at home
- 2 fresh-frozen mackerel;
- 30 grams of salt.
For sandwiches:
- 100 g of rye bread;
- 20 g butter;
- 30 g leek (light part of the stem);
- 1 pod of chili;
- a bunch of green onions.
Method of making salted mackerel at home
So, first gutting the fish - we make a deep incision on the belly, reach the inside, cut off the tail and head. Then rinse thoroughly with cold running water.
Sharply sharpened with a wide knife, cut the flesh along the back, separating it from the ridge. Then spend the knife on the other side of the ridge. Hands gently separate the ridge from the pulp. From fish fillets we obtain visible bones, cut off the fins and a thin part of the peritoneum.
For each fish fillet, pour 1.5 teaspoons of table salt without additives evenly (from the side where there is no skin).
Combine the halves of fish fillets together, put them in a hermetically sealed container. Top with the remaining salt. We remove the container on the lower shelf of the refrigerator compartment.
The next day, a liquid appears in the container, it needs to be drained and again put it in the fridge for another 3 days.
In 3-4 days the mackerel is ready. This is the so-called “dry” method of salting - the result is a tender, fatty and very tasty light-salted fish fillet. Even from the bones do not need to clean! Salted mackerel at home is ready!
Fish canapes
Now we make fish canapes. On a small piece of fresh rye bread spread a thick layer of butter. Cut into thin rings the bright part of the stem of a leek, put on the butter.
Salted mackerel at home with a sharpened knife cut into thin slices, put on onion rings.
We clean the pods of hot chili peppers from seeds and partitions, cut off a few ringlets. We thread green onions in the ringlets - decorate the canapes and immediately serve to the table.
By the way, there is a way to cut fillets very thin. To do this, wrap each piece separately in food film, send it in the freezer. After a few hours, when the mackerel fillets freeze, you can shake it with almost transparent slices with a sharp knife.
