How To Easily Peel Off The Scales Of A Perch, River Or Sea, And Quickly Cut It + Video

2024 Author: Bailey Albertson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-17 22:26

How to peel and cut perch

A fish loves where it is deeper, and a person loves where the fish is … Who would refuse a fragrant ear or a fried fish! A rare case when tasty is also healthy. One of the types of edible fish is river or sea bass. The river, as a rule, gets into the pot with fish soup, but its marine counterpart is often fried in a pan. But before you eat the fish, you need to cook it. We will figure out how to properly and, most importantly, quickly clean and cut the perch.

Why is perch so good

The perch is easily recognizable by its characteristic spiny fins on the back and bright red on the abdomen, by the tiger-striped color of the scales. Perch, as a rule, are small in size and usually do not exceed three kilograms in weight. Exceptions are found in the ranks of sea bass, where some individuals can reach fourteen kilograms. Due to its small size, perch became prey for large fish, birds and, of course, humans.

River perch is caught in rivers and lakes

River perch lives in fresh water bodies: rivers, flowing lakes. Marine - in coastal areas and rocky deep-water areas of the seas and oceans.

Perch meat is low-calorie and full of vitamins and minerals:

• B vitamins;
• vitamin C;
• vitamin E;
• vitamin PP;
• vitamin A;
• vitamin D;
• phosphorus;
• iron;
• iodine.

River perch is tasty fish and contains few bones. The marine variety of this fish is no worse in taste, but there are much more bones in it.

How to peel and cut perch

Cleaning the perch is not the easiest task. The scales of this fish are dense, and the fins are spiny. For butchering you will need:

• cutting board (there is a special board for cutting fish with a tail clip and grooves where blood and mucus collects);
• scissors with which you remove fins and gills;
• not too narrow and not too wide knife;
• saw blade for sawing bones;
• forceps for removing bones and skin.

Photo gallery: tools for cleaning and cutting fish

It is convenient to remove fins and gills with scissors

Forceps are indispensable for removing bones

Knife - file serves for sawing large bones

Convenient cutting board as the clothespin holds the fish by the tail

We clean the perch from the scales

Before removing the scales, remove the sharp dorsal fin with a knife or scissors. And then apply one of the ways to cleanse the perch:

Remove the back fin first, then the rest

• Freeze fresh fish in the freezer before cleaning. Then the scales will come off easily;
• the opposite way is to dip the carcass in boiling water for two minutes. Hard scales will become soft and easy to remove;
• with salt. Rub the fish with salt at night, and in the morning the scales will easily come off the skin.

Getting rid of the skin

You don't need to skin the perch if you want to roast or bake it, because then the meat will lose its juice. But small perches are advised to be peeled before cooking. The skin is also removed when it is necessary to cook fish fillets.

To remove the skin, you need to carry out a number of manipulations with the carcass:

1. Make a cut in the head near the spine.

   

   Making an incision in the head of the fish at the spine

2. Make cuts at the top and bottom of the dorsal fin and pull it out.

   

   Removing the dorsal fin

3. Pick up the skin and pull it up to the belly.

4. Pull the skin together with the head from the fish (the giblets will also go away).

   

   Pull the skin together with the head from the carcass

5. Rinse the refreshed carcass under running water.

Gutted perch

If there is no need to remove the skin, then the next step in butchering is to gut the fish. To remove the entrails, cut the abdomen from the tail to the gills and scrub gently. It is important not to touch or damage the gallbladder.

We cut the abdomen from the tail to the gills and carefully clean the insides

Video: how to remove the skin from a perch with a knife

Cooking fresh perch for cooking

So, before us is a peeled and gutted perch. Then it all depends on what kind of dish you are going to cook from it.

Fish soup

Some recipes suggest first boiling the perch in scales, then removing it from the broth, removing the skin, removing the bones, and sending the finished meat back to the fish soup.

If you want to cook the fish soup from the fillet, you must first free the fish from the skin along with the head, as described above, cut the carcass in two along the ridge and pull out the bones, and then prepare pieces of the required size and cook the broth from them.

Cutting for frying

For frying, it is better to cut the perch into steaks. The skin does not need to be removed, as it creates a crispy crust. Cut the gutted perch, headless and finless, into medium-sized pieces using a saw.

We clean and cut frozen perch

We buy sea bass, as a rule, frozen. If you plan to fry fish, then immediately start cleaning and cutting it, and first defrost the carcass for the fish soup.

The sea bass has a bright color

Defrost the perch gradually, preferably in cold water. To speed up the process, add a tablespoon of salt there.

Frozen bass is much easier to clean than fresh one.

1. Remove all fins first.
2. Make an incision near the head, along the abdomen, and across the back.
3. Scrape off the scales with a knife or scraper.
4. Use forceps to separate the skin and cut off the head.
5. Gut the fish.
6. If necessary, cut the finished carcass into fillets and peel them of bones.

Video: butchering frozen river bass

Fresh river or frozen sea bass is a tasty and healthy product. And don't be confused by the process of cleaning or butchering the perch anymore. A little patience and skill - and wonderful homemade dishes will delight you and your loved ones!