Sometimes housewives have difficulties when it comes to preparing pike perch caught in a pond or purchased at the market. Some people don’t want to deal with this fish at all, since cleaning pike perch is not entirely easy and is even unsafe. But if you consider how tasty and healthy it is, then perhaps it’s worth overcoming the difficulties associated with its preparation in order to please your family with a wonderful fish dish. To do this, you need to figure out exactly what obstacles arise during cleaning this fish and how to deal with them.
Why is it difficult to remove scales from pike perch and what can be used for this?
Pike perch belongs to the fish of the perch family. Its habitats are rivers and various fresh water bodies. Like other members of its family, pike perch differs from many freshwater fish in having hard scales. In addition, it has very spiny dorsal fins, which pose a danger to the hands of those who catch it or try to clean it.
To properly and quickly prepare pike perch for heat treatment, you need to acquire a convenient tool for removing scales. Perhaps your farm has preserved a device designed specifically for this from the times of the Soviet Union. Or maybe you will find such a fish scaler in modern hardware stores or at the market. If this is a difficult question for you, then try peeling off the scales with a knife with serrated edges on the back side or a regular metal fork.
But the easiest way is to make a fish scaler yourself from scrap materials, similar to a factory product. This can be done in the following ways.
- Take a metal vegetable grater with small burrs, bend its sides with pliers and attach a wooden handle to it.
- Screw several beer caps to a wooden spatula (from kitchen utensils), with the teeth facing outward.
- In the bottom of a tin can, use a nail to punch many holes through the inside, due to which burrs are formed on the outside - the same as on a factory grater. Provide the resulting product with a U-shaped handle made of hard metal, attaching its edges to diametrically opposite sides of the jar walls.
As for the first two options, the tool will be more convenient to use if its working surface is at a slight obtuse angle with respect to the wooden handle.
Method of cleaning and cutting this type of fish
To clean pike perch of scales without causing harm to yourself, you must first remove its dangerous fins. You can use special kitchen scissors for this. If this item is not in your household, then use a regular knife, but it is important to sharpen it well. It is better to cut off the spines by capturing the part of the body located at their base. When using a sharp knife, do not point it towards where your hands or other parts of the body are - cut away from you.
Do not under any circumstances ignore this recommendation regarding the preliminary removal of fins, even when you want to quickly cook pike perch. If you clean off the scales without getting rid of the spines on the back of the fish, then if you get injured on them, you can get a wound that festers for a long time and does not heal, and sometimes blood poisoning.
Having freed yourself from the fins, you can safely begin to remove the scales, using one of the options for the tool mentioned above.
To do everything correctly, you need to follow these steps (for right-handers):
- grab the pike perch with your left hand by the tail,
- take the cleaning device in your right hand,
- moving the tool in the direction from the tail to the head, tear the body of the fish until you free it from scales.
To prevent the fish from slipping in your hand during cleaning, you can rub it with salt before doing so.
The procedure for removing scales from pike perch has another negative consequence. No matter what device you use to clean this fish, the scales will scatter, littering the surrounding space. But this can be avoided by applying one of the following recommendations.
- If you catch the fish yourself, clean it right on the shore of the reservoir, without bringing garbage into your home.
- If you decide to do this at home, then clean it in water.
- You can also clean pike perch by placing your hands inside a plastic bag.
Whichever of the listed methods you choose, you will save time and effort that would have to be spent on cleaning, especially if you need to process more than one fish. Having removed the scales from the pike perch’s body, you can begin to extract its entrails.
The sequence of this procedure is as follows.
- Take the fish by the head with your left hand (for right-handers), placing it belly up, while hooking your thumb on the gills. This will make it easier to hold it in the desired position.
- Take a sharp knife in your right hand so that its blade “looks” up.
- Holding the knife at a slight angle to the surface of the fish's body, pierce its belly between the gills and split it open, moving the tool towards the base of the caudal fin.
- Remove the innards, setting them aside, and rinse the pike perch under running water, inside and out.
All that remains is to separate the fat from the extracted entrails, if there is a lot of it, as well as milt or caviar, if they are in the fish, and throw away the rest. After this, the cleaned and gutted pike perch and its edible contents can be used to prepare a variety of delicious dishes.
After cleaning the scales and removing the dorsal fin, cut off the remaining fins with a knife, cut the belly of the fish from the anus to the gills, trim the membranes and remove the entrails.
Filling fish with skin and bones
In prepared fish, the flesh is cut along the edges of the gill covers on both sides, the vertebral bone is cut and the head is separated. Through the resulting hole, gutting is done, the films are cut and removed, being careful not to tear the skin of the abdomen, then the fins and tail are cut off with a knife. The washed fish is cut crosswise into portions with skin and bones, which are used for boiling, frying and stuffing.
Fish weighing 1-1.5 kg are cut in this way, most often pike perch, carp and pike.
Filling fish with skin, rib bones and spine
After cleaning the scales, the belly of the fish is cut and gutted, then the skin around the dorsal fin is cut and removed. Next, the fish is placed on the table and, starting from the tail or head, the flesh is cut through to the vertebral bone. Running a knife along the spine, cut off the flesh with the rib bones. In this case, the rib bones are cut at the base of the vertebral bone. The result is one fillet with skin and rib bones, and another with head, skin, tail, vertebral and rib bones.
The head and tail are cut off, the fillet is washed and cut across the grain into portioned pieces: straight for cooking, obliquely for frying.
Cutting fish to obtain pieces with skin and rib bones
To begin with, the fish is cut in the same way as for fillet with skin, rib bones and spine. Then the fish fillet is placed on the table, skin side up, and the flesh with skin and rib bones is cut off from the vertebral bone with a knife. As a result of cutting, two fillets with skin and rib bones are obtained. The fillet is washed and cut into portions.
This cutting method is the most common and is used for processing large and medium-sized pieces of fish.
Cutting fish to obtain pieces with skin, without rib and vertebral bones
The fish is cut in the same way as for obtaining fillets with skin, rib bones and spine. However, in this case, pieces with skin and rib bones are placed on the table skin down, starting from the thickened part, the rib bones are cut off and the fins are removed. After washing, the fish is cut into portions.
Fish fillet without skin and bones
In this case, the scales of the fish are not peeled so that the skin does not tear when the pulp is separated. The fish is cut in the same way as for obtaining fillets with skin, without rib bones, but after cutting the bones from the fillet, the flesh is cut off from the skin. To do this, step back 1-1.5 cm from the edge and hold the fish skin with your hand and cut the fillet with a knife. Next, the fish is washed and cut into portions.
Cutting fish for stuffing
For stuffing whole fish, pike perch and pike are most often used.
Zander
The pike perch scales are thoroughly cleaned without damaging the fish skin. A deep cut in the flesh is made along the back on both sides of the dorsal fin and vertebral bone so that the vertebral bone is separated from the flesh and costal bones. The vertebral bone at the head and tail of the pike perch is broken and removed through an incision made in the back. Then, through the same incision, the entrails are removed and the rib bones are cut from the pulp. The gills are removed from the head. After this, the fish is washed well, the flesh is cut off, leaving it in a layer no more than 0.5 cm thick, and the fins are cut off with scissors on the outside and the fin bones on the inside.
Pike
Carefully, so as not to damage the skin, carefully remove the scales from the pike. Next, the skin is cut around the head, removed with a “stocking” in the direction from head to tail, and the vertebral bone is broken so that the tail remains with the skin removed. In this way, the skin with the tail and the flesh of the fish with bones and head are obtained. After this, the head is cut off, the abdomen is cut, the entrails are removed and the flesh is separated from the costal and vertebral bones.
Cutting burbot, eel, catfish, navaga, herring, sprat, anchovy and sprat
Burbot and eel
The skin of burbot and eel is cut around the head and removed entirely (it is more convenient to do this if the burbot is frozen). Then the belly is cut and the fish is gutted, the fins are removed and the head is cut off. After washing, the fish is cut into portions.
Som
The belly of the catfish is cut open and after gutting, the head is cut off, washed and cut into portions (if the skin needs to be removed from the catfish, this should be done before the catfish is thawed). Large specimens of catfish are plated, that is, cut so that two types of fillet are obtained: fillet with skin and rib bones and fillet with skin, rib bones and spine. The washed fish is cut into portions.
Note. If catfish is used to make cutlets, the skin is first removed.
Navaga
Use navaga whole, 2-4 pieces per serving. First, the skin of a whole fish is cut along the length of the back, the lower jaw is cut off, and the skin is removed with a “stocking” in the direction from head to tail (it is better to remove the skin from the fish when it is frozen). Through the hole formed near the head, the navaga is gutted, leaving caviar or milk in the fish, the gills are removed from the head, and then the fish is washed well.
Vakhnya (Far Eastern navaga)
Vakhnya is cut with or without skin for cutting into portions. The fish is cleaned of scales, the belly is cut, gutted, the head, tail, and fins are cut off and washed well. Then cut crosswise into portioned pieces - round pieces. If the fish is used without skin, then the skin is removed from the fish using a “stocking”.
Note 1. It is more convenient to remove the skin from frozen dough.
Note 2. Small specimens of fish are used whole and processed in the same way as navaga.
Herring, sprat, anchovy, sprat
Salka, sprat, anchovy and sprat are processed in the same way. The fish is washed and then the head and entrails are removed. You can also cut off the tail and remove the vertebral bone.
Salted fish (if necessary) is soaked for 2-6 hours (depending on size) in cold water, changing the water every hour.
Cutting fish with a cartilaginous skeleton
Sturgeon, beluga, stellate sturgeon
These types of fish are cut in the same way. After thawing, the head of the fish is cut off with the head fins, the dorsal fin and dorsal bugs (5 longitudinal rows of bony scutes) are cut off along with a strip of skin, the tail is cut off and the vizier is removed (tendons and ligaments located along the spine of sturgeon fish). Then the fish is cut lengthwise along the back - flattened. The incision should pass through the middle of the fatty layer of the vertebral cartilage. The resulting pieces are called links. (If the screed is not removed, then it is removed from the links.)
The links of large beluga specimens are cut lengthwise and crosswise into 2-4 pieces. To prevent the formation of clots of coagulated protein on the surface of the links during heat treatment, which worsen the appearance of the dish, the links are first scalded. (When scalding the links, it is easier to remove the side and abdominal bugs from them. In addition, pieces of unscalded fish shrink in volume when frying, as a result of which the breading lags.)
After scalding, the fish is washed with cold water. From links intended for cutting raw into portioned pieces, blood clots are removed and vertebral and costal cartilages are cut off.
From the skinless pulp, cut into portions (cut obliquely, across the grain), which are scalded by immersing them in hot water for 2-3 minutes. The scalded pieces are immediately washed in cold water.
Links intended for boiling whole followed by cutting into portions are cleaned of blood clots and washed with cold water. Then they are immersed in hot water for 3-5 minutes. Having taken them out of the water, the lateral and abdominal bugs are immediately removed from them and the skin is cleaned of small bone scales. After this, the links are washed again with cold water.
The finished washed links are tied with twine so that they do not change shape during thermal processing.
Sterlet
The dorsal fins are cleaned from the sterlet, as well as, starting from the tail, the lateral, ventral and dorsal bugs. Next, the fish is cleaned of mucus, the head is cut off, the abdomen is cut, the entrails and vizig are removed, washed and cut into portions.
Large sterlet is cut into two sections, washed well and cut into portions.
If the entire sterlet is subjected to heat processing, then the head is not cut off, but only the gills are cut out of it. The dorsal bugs are not removed; they are removed after heat treatment.
Herring cutting
Herring, if it is very salty, must first be soaked for 2-3 hours in cold boiled water or in weak tea. Then remove skin and bones.
Kerch, Danube and smoked herrings are not soaked, you just need to remove the skin from them.
Cleaning of herring is carried out as follows: the edge of the abdomen, head and tail are cut off, the carcass is freed from the entrails, an incision is made along the back and the skin is removed on both sides from the head to the tail. Next, the meat is separated from the spinal bone and the rib bones are cut off from each half.
The herring halves are placed together, cut into portions, and transferred from the board to a plate or herring patch. After this, the washed head (without gills) and tail are placed on half of the herring.
The finished dish is garnished with green or onions, boiled carrots, potatoes, beets, turnips, boiled egg slices, fresh cucumber slices and tomato slices.
Before serving, garnished herring is topped with dressing. (The dressing is prepared from 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil, 2 tablespoons of 3% vinegar, 0.5 teaspoon of mustard, sugar, salt and ground black pepper.)
When she told me how, she mentioned that fillets of pike perch, pike and many other types of fish can be baked in exactly the same way, and promised to show how to make the actual fish fillet . Therefore, I am posting the long-promised photographs of two-minute fish cutting, in which my husband is a great expert, often showing this show to guests with constant success. Before my husband showed it to me, I thought it was a lot of fuss, and didn’t even imagine that it was possible to deal with fish so quickly.
We lightly washed the fish under cold water, in this case we have pike perch, which we will now fillet in 10 movements. In no case is it necessary to specifically remove the entrails, cut off the head and gills, and especially clean the scales - this is the "Wasted Labor" artel. By the way, many fishermen, who have had fishing as a hobby since childhood, do not know how to cut fish or do not like to cut them: many friends come with their catch and ask their husband to help, and he always happily responds. 
We make a small transverse incision under the gills. 
Then we make a neat shallow longitudinal incision along the fish belly. 
We insert the knife into a cross-section and, holding the fish by the head, cut the fillet along the ridge. 
This is what a fillet that has just been removed from the backbone looks like, with the skin on which the scales remain. We lift it to the side and turn the fish over. 
In the same way, cut off the second half, that is, the remaining part of the fillet. 
Cutting off the head and taking out the insides, as you can see, is unnecessary. If fish bones are not needed, they are thrown away. And if you are going to cook soup or sauce using broth, then by easily separating the entrails and washing the bones, you can use them. After preparing the broth, strain it through a fine colander, putting cheesecloth in it if necessary, which depends on how clear the broth we want to get. The bones are discarded and the fillets are added to the broth. When preparing fish soup this way, you don't have to fuss with the bones in the bowl. 
Next, holding the skin with scales with a special cutting fork, we cut the fillet at the edge and run the knife along the skin itself from the inside in one movement. 
Bring the knife to the middle of the fillet without stopping movement. 
And that’s the end of the procedure, another second and the fillet is ready! Remember that all three previous pictures are one movement, just for clarity I divided it into three parts. 
As a result of quickly cutting the fish into fillets, the result is that the skin and scales are separated, and the fillet is separated. But it is not necessary to throw away the skin: if you want to get a rich broth, then you can also boil the skin of the scales - after all, we will still strain our broth before seasoning with vegetables and fillets.
You can also cook fish fillets, stewed in cream, or simply fry for 5 minutes.
But why even know how to fillet fish if you can buy it in a store, but fresh fish is not available everywhere?
Firstly, fresh fish has been sold in many stores for a long time, secondly, on vacation in the country you can buy it from fishermen, thirdly, I thought that I already promised to tell you and it’s interesting how fillets are made in general.
What do you think, friends?
Also in my journal in full detail.
Pike perch is a very tasty and healthy fish that lives in rivers and fresh water bodies. Often it becomes a trophy of amateur fishing and therefore ends up on the dinner table against the wishes of the hostess. Unfortunately, rarely does anyone consciously purchase this fish in order to prepare a tasty dish from it, and most often this is due to the fact that few people know how to clean pike perch quickly and without difficulty.
Cleaning Features
Pike perch belongs to the perch family, therefore it has very dense scales that are difficult to separate and very sharp fins. Housewives who encounter this fish for the first time often experience discomfort and receive many minor injuries during the cleaning process. This is why pike perch is not very popular. But if you know how to properly clean this fish, you can enjoy a tasty and healthy dish.
In order to separate the scales, experienced chefs advise having on hand a special device for cleaning fish, which are sold in hardware departments. If you don’t have one, a regular vegetable grater with small notches on the outside can replace it; all Soviet-style graters have such surfaces.
Advice! You can make a device for cleaning fish scales yourself. To do this, you need to use screws to screw several beer caps to a wooden paddle with the notches facing out. Or punch a lot of holes in a regular metal lid with a nail and also attach it to a spatula.
How to clean
As is already known, pike perch is a dangerous fish, so you should start cleaning it by removing sharp fins. The easiest way to cut them is with scissors; not only special kitchen scissors are suitable for this, but also ordinary household scissors. If there are none, then you can carefully cut off the dangerous fin with a knife. The cut must be made across the growth of the fin, capturing a small part of the pike perch meat and in the direction away from you.
Once the fins are removed, you can begin removing the scales. If you approach this issue unprepared, you can stain the entire kitchen space with waste and add long hours of cleaning, since scales quickly scatter and are difficult to remove from surfaces. To prevent this from happening, you should clean it in water or by placing the fish in a bag and putting your hands in it. Holding the fish by the tail, use a cleaning device to rub the pike perch in the direction from the tail to the base of the head until there are no scales left on the body.
Having cleared the pike perch of scales, you can begin further processing. It is important to rinse the carcass from any remaining scales and after that you can start cutting it up.
You need to place the carcass on a cutting board and rip open the abdominal cavity; this should be done carefully so as not to accidentally damage the gallbladder. After this, the entrails are removed and the caviar and milt can be separated from them if you plan to eat them. The rest should be thrown away, and the pike perch itself should be thoroughly washed in running water.
How to separate the fillet
After everything went well and you didn’t have to clean the fish in hellish conditions, you can separate the fillets from the bones and prepare fish cutlets or any other dish from it as desired. To remove meat from bones:
- make a deep cut along the back all the way to the spine, so as not to damage or cut the ribs;
- Slide the knife under the ribs and carefully remove the meat from them;
- Cut the fillet from the tail;
- Do the same on the back side of the fish.
It is impossible to separate the meat from the skin without a knife; you can only carefully cut it off.
From all of the above, it follows that cleaning pike perch is not such a difficult task and, with the right approach, is no more difficult than cleaning any other type of fish.
I am fulfilling my promise last year to post a selection of videos on how to cut fish into clean fillets, i.e. no bones AT ALL. There are quite a lot of videos, so I will put most of them under the cut.
I'm not a big fan of fish, and largely because 1 - it's a chore to clean and cut it, 2 - because you spit bones all the time. However, for some time now I have adapted to filleting fish, then a significant part of the problems is solved - there is no need to clean it at all, and there are no bones.
Most often in our family we cook pike (because my husband likes to fish for pike) and pike perch (because I dislike them least of all :)). That’s why I’ll start my selection with them.
So, how to cut a pike quickly and easily, and so that there are no Y-shaped bones left in it, i.e. perfect boneless fillet.
Even though the video is in English, everything is clear.
When the uncle begins to cut out the Y-shaped bones, he says that you don’t need to cut all the way through, that after trying a couple of times, you yourself will learn to feel where the ends of the bones reach. In another video, which was unsuccessful in terms of shooting style, which is why I’m not showing it, it was said that you need to make a cut under the bones about 2/3 of the thickness of the fillet.
Now the pike perch. In principle, it can be cut in exactly the same way as pike, only its Y-shaped bones are located differently. But pike perch is wider and thicker in the abdomen than pike, plus it has another very tasty “detail”.
There are two cutting options here, choose for yourself which one is closer to you.
The first one is without removing the Y-shaped bones, but I really like the way the guy removes the fillet.
Second, the carcass itself is cut a little differently, and the Y-shaped bones are also removed.
Perch is cut into clean fillets in the same way as pike perch. But if the fish are very small, then there is no point in cutting them up - there will simply be nothing left of them. How to quickly clean a small perch, at least from the skin and scales? Let's look:
Cutting flat fish - flounder, halibut, etc.
Som. Catfish shish kebab, catfish manti, even catfish pilaf - incredibly tasty! And cutting up catfish is a pleasure - there are few bones, a lot of meat. The main thing is to remove the skin quickly and correctly. How? Let's look:
And finally, cutting one of the most delicious and most valuable fish in terms of nutritional properties - salmon. Very, VERY good video, just a little boring at the beginning, so it's better to start watching at 3:22. Be sure to watch until the end! The cook simply does a great job of explaining which part of the fillet is used to make what and HOW to make it.
Salmon, trout, and other types of red fish are cut in the same way.
I hope someone finds this material interesting and useful.
