How to properly cut sturgeon before cooking. Sturgeon processing
Even in ancient times, sturgeon was considered the most delicious fish, and even today its meat is a delicacy. It lacks small bones, it has a great taste and excellent nutritional properties. All this makes dishes from this fish an excellent treat for the festive table, unless, of course, you know how to cook sturgeon. They can be added to the daily diet, such food is healthy and extremely useful. To properly serve sturgeon, you need to know the intricacies of cooking this fish: how to properly cut it, and what dishes are best made from it.
So, before you start cooking, you need to figure out how to cut a sturgeon. If the fish is still alive, it must be euthanized. One hour of sturgeon in the freezer or at least a couple of hours in the refrigerator will help solve this problem. Like river fish, sturgeon is not cleaned, only growths (“bugs”) on the skin are cut off. They are located on the back and sides. The dorsal "bugs" are cut off with a knife, and the side ones are peeled off, like scales from an ordinary fish, in the direction from tail to head. Next, you need to pull out the insides and remove the gills.
After that, you need to get a vizig. What it is? The thing is that the sturgeon does not have vertebrae, their cartilage replaces them. Since there are no vertebrae, then the bones are completely absent. The central ridge also replaces the cartilage, veins pass inside it. They are called viziga. The task is to extract it without violating the integrity. The rupture of the squeal leads to the fact that it turns into a white gelatinous mass. It was once used to make fillings for pies. If you do not get the screech from the sturgeon, then the meat becomes poisonous.
And in order to use it for the preparation of the filling, it is necessary to clear the screech from the internal contents. And after that it can be eaten and it is even considered that it is useful. How to extract a screech from a sturgeon? To do this, you need to make 2 incisions, in the tail area and in the head area of the fish. The depth of the cut should reach its middle. The squeal will be visible, it is white. You need to pull it slowly and carefully. Next, the fish is thoroughly washed under cold water, and after that it will be ready for cooking.
On culinary websites, you can learn, for example, how to cook a whole sturgeon. To do this, rub the fish scales with salt (this will kill germs), rinse under cold water and cut as described above. Salt the prepared sturgeon, brush with sour cream, stuff with tomatoes and chopped herbs and bake in the oven until cooked.
This is not the only recipe for how to cook sturgeon in the oven. It can be cooked with different fillings, or without them. You can coat the fish with mayonnaise or mix it with sour cream. Sturgeon, like any other fish, goes well with lemon slices. You can just pour the fish with its juice. But in any case, before cooking the sturgeon, it must be properly butchered. And finally, one more piece of advice. It will be much easier to clean the fish from growths if you scald it 1-2 times with boiling water before cutting.
Sturgeon is the most valuable commercial fish. It can be fried, stuffed, stewed, baked, salted. But first of all, the fish must be cleaned and cut. However, not everyone knows how to clean a sturgeon and cut it properly, but it is very important not to make mistakes, otherwise the taste of the dish will be spoiled, and all your efforts will be in vain.
We clean the sturgeon
In order not to spoil the fish when cutting it, you should stock up on the necessary accessories in advance, namely a caviar bowl, a sharp knife and an hatchet.
It is very important to buy live fish, because the causative agents of botulism multiply in the intestines of sturgeon fish in large numbers. But if you bought frozen fish, then before cutting the sturgeon, it should be thawed, and this is best done by placing it on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator. First of all, you should pour very hot water over the sturgeon so that all the mucus comes off it, then it will be easier to remove the scales on the sides.
If you know that the fish is caviar, then you need to carefully open its belly, take out the caviar, and after it all the insides. In this case, you need to act very carefully so that the gallbladder is not affected, because if bile spills on the meat, then nothing can save it, you just have to throw it away.
Butchering the sturgeon
After the entrails with caviar have been successfully removed, the head of the fish should be cut off along with the pectoral fins, which does not have to be sent to the trash can, since it can make a wonderful jellied meat. You only need to pour boiling water over it, cut off the seals or bugs, remove the gills, chop the head into several pieces and boil it.
The next step in cutting the sturgeon will be the removal of the squeal. Screech is a spinal vein that runs along the entire body of the fish, it is considered poisonous and should not be eaten without specialized processing. To do this, you need to take the sturgeon by the tail, make a circular incision along the skin at the very base of the fish, then lift it up and the squeal will easily slip out by itself.
Now we remove the plaques that run along the entire body, for this the carcass must be doused with boiling water. If you have a large fish, then for this procedure you will have to cut it into transverse pieces. But when you don't have time to mess with it, you can simply cut them off along with a strip of leather. That's all the sturgeon is butchered.
The cut fish can be left whole or cut into portions, it all depends on the dish you want to cook from this royal fish. Now you know how to clean the sturgeon, and how to cut it properly, and you will get a delicious dish from this fish.
How to properly clean a sturgeon and butcher a carcass at home.
Fish is a valuable and unique product used for cooking dishes of various cuisines of the world. Among the representatives of the aquatic environment, the owner of useful, with excellent taste qualities of meat - sturgeon is deservedly noted. Dishes prepared from sturgeon will be the highlight of any table and will pleasantly surprise family members and guests. In most cases, it is not cleaned, and it will not be difficult to butcher this king fish.
- 1 Features and value of sturgeon
- 2 How to clean sturgeon
- 3 Gutting
- 4 When to cut sturgeon into layers
- 5 Cleaning the frozen carcass
- 6 Features of preparing fish for stuffing
Features and value of sturgeon
Sturgeon - one of the oldest fish on the planet, lived in the aquatic environment even in the time of the dinosaurs. Sturgeon is rightfully considered the king of fish, its tasty and tender meat is a storehouse of fatty and amino acids, minerals and vitamins, which positively affects the human brain and heart activity, and prevents atherosclerosis.
tasty and healthy fish
The sturgeon has hard, sandpaper-like skin, covered with shields of bone tissue - popularly called "bugs". The sturgeon has no vertebrae, and therefore no bones. Cartilage is a replacement for the vertebrae. A feature of the sturgeon is the presence of a chord, which is often called a screech. This is a white vein that runs along the entire length of the cartilaginous spine of the sturgeon. When cutting the fish, the screech must be removed, because within 3-4 hours after the death of the sturgeon, it picks up poisons.
When cleaning and cutting sturgeon, separate rules must be observed.
How to clean a sturgeon
Ice cream sturgeon is left to thaw in air at room temperature before cleaning, and if the fish to be cleaned is alive, put it in the freezer for an hour - thereby “lulling” it.
Gutting the carcass
The screech can be removed in another way without damaging the carcass:
When to cut sturgeon into layers
- Trim the fins using a sharp knife or kitchen scissors. The movements of the knife should be away from you in order to avoid causing cuts.
- If we cook the whole sturgeon, remove the gills. Otherwise, cut off the head.
- If necessary, we plast the carcass - we put it on a cutting board with its back up and cut it from the head in the longitudinal direction into halves, called links. The incision line during stratification should pass strictly in the middle of the fatty layer of the vertebral cartilage, if this rule is not observed, the shape of the links will be incorrect and excess waste will appear. We cut each link into the number of portioned pieces you need.
Many successful fishermen and housewives make videos showing clearly that anyone can clean sturgeon at home. Here is one of them.
How to clean sturgeon - video
In some cases, sturgeon is cleaned and butchered without defrosting, for example, for preparing sliced meat, and for some, this method of cleaning fish is simply the most convenient.
Frozen carcass cleaning
Video: how to clean frozen sturgeon fish
Sturgeon for cooking can be used with or without skin. If the fish is baked as a whole, then for the sake of aesthetics, the skin and head are not removed. If you decide to stuff the sturgeon, you need to properly prepare the ingredients.
Features of preparing fish for stuffing
And finally, a few tips:
- When choosing a sturgeon, pay attention to the outer cover - the presence of wounds and bruises indicate the danger of such a fish, since damaged areas can be infectious foci.
- When cleaning the sturgeon, use work gloves in order not to injure your hands on sharp spikes.
- To remove mucus from the surface of the fish, you can use salt - rub the skin with salt and rinse the carcass with water.
Following the rules of cleaning and cutting sturgeon, you can easily and quickly cope with this task. Let the exquisite dishes prepared from this royal fish delight you and your loved ones.
Almost a master class from the rangers of the Partizan Forest Club, filmed during.
First of all, the sturgeon must be caught. As it turns out, this is not such an easy task. But let's assume that we successfully coped with this and here he is, a handsome man, in experienced hands.
Before butchering, the fish has to be killed, a simple extraction from the water is not enough for this, and the huntsman hits a small hammer at a certain point on the head of the fish. Ready!
The gills are removed first. If they are left, they will spoil the whole taste of the fish, because. bitter strongly. Plus sand. And blood. Strange thing, but there was practically no more blood during cutting. 
Then the fish is poured with boiling water, this is done not only to easily remove the bone spikes from the carcass, but also to preserve the attractive appearance of the fish: if you do not clean off the mucus covering the carcass, then when cooking / frying, it forms gray nasty flakes. The spikes are cleaned with a special knife. 
Watering and cleaning :) 
Here is that spike from the guessing game :) 
After removing all the spikes, the carcass is opened and the insides are cleaned. Plast from the side of the abdomen exactly in the middle of the fatty layer of the spinal cartilage. Then deep incisions are made on the "back of the head" (well, if the fish had a back of the head, then it's somewhere there) and tail, and a screech is pulled through the hole in the back of the head - this is such a vein in the central cartilage. If you do not get the screech from the sturgeon, then the meat will become poisonous. 
What an assistant, but :)) Handsome, handsome, solid such. Waiting for his share. 
That's it. After cutting, the fish is cut into portions for further cooking. 
Like any other fish, sturgeon needs to be cleaned before cooking. First, the fish must be frozen, and then poured over with boiling water. This will allow you to easily separate the skin from the carcass and not get hurt on the sturgeon thorns.
Fish cleaning instructions
Since the skin of the sturgeon is very tough and adheres tightly to the meat, it is very difficult to clean it “live” without freezing, moreover, you can easily get hurt on the spines of the fish.
Suppose you need portioned pieces. In this case, fresh fish can be cut across the ridge into the required number of pieces, and then simply cut the flesh out of the skin with a sharp knife.
If a whole sturgeon is needed for cooking, freezing will have to be used here. Initially, it is better to cut off the tail, fins and head and mark the fish in the refrigerator until completely frozen. It's about two hours.
After the fish is taken out, it is necessary to cut off the spines. It is better to do this with gloves, so it will be more convenient to hold and your hands will freeze less. The spines are cut starting from the head to the tail, it is better if you rest the tail of the fish against a wall or countertop so that it does not move during cutting. The spines are cut to the meat, at this point it will then be possible to begin to remove the skin.
After cutting the spines, the fish must be poured with boiling water. It is worth noting that if this procedure is carried out with fresh fish, the probability of getting the effect of cooked meat under the skin is quite high, which is why the method of freezing is proposed as a method of preventing premature boiled meat.
So, we pour boiling water over the fish and gradually remove the skin, here it is necessary to act from tail to head. Right now, those cuts from the thorns will come in handy, you need to hook on them and pull very carefully so that the skin does not tear.
After the skin has been removed, the sturgeon is ready for cooking. In addition to heat treatment, sturgeon is salted or smoked; for some dishes, sturgeon meat is consumed raw.
Sturgeon is very useful for the body. It contains a sufficient amount of iodine for the proper functioning of the thyroid gland and fatty acids, which do an excellent job of lowering blood cholesterol.
Not the last place is occupied by fish and the content of fluorine, which is involved in the growth of bones. Previously, fish oil was often prescribed to children to replenish the reserves of this element, but now it is possible to make up for the lack of fluorine without taking this not very tasty component, it is enough just to consume sturgeon regularly.
The main thing to remember is that the fish must be fresh, try to buy it from trusted sellers or specialized fish stores.
