Lightly salted sturgeon - a do-it-yourself royal appetizer

If possible, for pickling yourself, choose chilled sturgeon rather than frozen. Pay attention to its appearance and smell. The fish should smell like fish, without any signs of rotten meat or vinegar. There will be no harm from frozen fish, and the worst that can happen is that in a salted state it will not hold its shape well. But, if lightly salted sturgeon is smoked or dried, these shortcomings will not be noticeable.

Wash the sturgeon and get ready to cut. Our stores receive specimens weighing 2-3 kg, and this is the ideal weight for this type of fish.

Trim the head, fins and tail. These parts of the fish contain a lot of meat and fat, so you are guaranteed “Tsar’s fish soup”. Rip open the belly and remove the entrails.

In the North, in the region of sturgeon production, local residents extract vizigi from sturgeon. They are dried in the wind and then used for pies or making fish soup. Visiga is a connective cartilage-fibrous tissue found inside the sturgeon’s spine. When cutting fish, the vizig is picked up with a sharp knife and pulled out through the tail section. In appearance, the viziga is a translucent white intestine, which is what needs to be dried.When salting sturgeon, the backbone is still removed, and such a valuable vizier is thrown away.

Remove the spine itself and all bones. Cut the fish into 4-5 large pieces.

Sprinkle them with salt on the inside and rub generously on the outside. Don't be afraid to over-salt the fish. The degree of saltiness of fish depends not on the amount of salt, but on the time of salting.

Place the sturgeon in a deep bowl, compact it and sprinkle with salt again. Cover the fish with a plate and place pressure on top. Place the bowl of fish in the refrigerator for 24 hours so that it is thoroughly saturated with salt.

Remove the fish from the refrigerator and rinse it in running, cold water. Place on a mesh to drain and dry. Lightly salted sturgeon is ready, and now you can cut it into sandwiches, or put it in the smoker to get smoked sturgeon.

After all, lightly salted sturgeon does not store very well because the meat is too tender and fatty. To prevent the fish from spoiling in the refrigerator, place it in a glass jar and fill it with vegetable oil. In this way, sturgeon can be stored for 3 weeks, and during this time it must be eaten. Although, with the divine taste that sturgeon has, there will be no problems with this.

How to cook lightly salted sturgeon, watch the video: