If the question is what to cook something original, quickly and, at the same time, inexpensive and not labor-intensive, then salted horse mackerel from the Black Sea is what you need. When choosing fish for salting, it is necessary to take into account that an excellent dish is not obtained from every type of fish, but only from a certain one, which has specific properties, namely, the ability to “ripen”. These are, first of all, herring, salmon, whitefish, notothenia, mackerel, anchovy and mackerel families of fish.

When salting fish, 3 groups of finished products are distinguished in accordance with the mass fraction of salt in the total yield. Thus, lightly salted, medium salted and strongly salted fish are distinguished, where the salt content is 6-10%, 10-14% and over 14%, respectively.

The use of coarse non-iodized salt when preparing spicy salting of fish ensures that excess moisture is removed from it. In this way, it is achieved that the product does not impart any taste or preserve it, but that moisture is extracted from the fish due to the slower dissolution of coarse salt crystals at low temperatures compared to fine salt, which, when dissolved, immediately ensures rapid salting of the fish without dehydration. The brine, which is formed during the salting process from a solution of salt and natural juice of the fish pulp, is called brine. The most suitable container for salting horse mackerel is stainless steel, enamel or plastic durable dishes.

Horse mackerel must be washed with cold water before salting. Then you need to leave it to ensure the moisture drains, but it is important not to overdry the fish, otherwise it will lose its taste. Next, the fish is placed belly up in a container prepared for salting and sprinkled with salt in layers. Salt consumption is 1 kg per 10 kg of fish. When salting, using a mixture of salt and sugar at the rate of 25-30 g per kilogram of salt gives horse mackerel an unusually delicate taste.

Upon completion of laying the horse mackerel, it is covered with a mixture of salt, sugar, preservative and spices and vinegar is added in doses. The use of vinegar speeds up the process of salting fish and lightens its flesh. Then the container with the fish is placed under pressure and placed in a cold place, where the temperature should not exceed 3 - 8 degrees Celsius. As oppression, it is best to use linden or aspen boards, made in the form of circles from a single piece of wood or from sold bars. The use of these types of wood is due to their resistance to deformation in a salty environment and the absence of resin emissions, as well as tannins.

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To begin with, I will give you a recipe for dried (properly dried) Black Sea mackerel, because due to its small size, the absence of falling large scales, marine origin and belonging to the order Perciformes, it has a body that is convenient for peeling scales, a specific spicy taste and special aroma. According to “Commodity Research of Food Products” (N.D. Kudentsov, Publishing House “Economy”, M., 1968, p. 115), “dried fish is called fish that has previously undergone a salting process using a cooled brine method or a dry salting method, and then dried for hangers to remove moisture until ready at a humidity of no more than 38%.”

For drying, it is better to take Black Sea mackerel of approximately the same size, with a length of at least 10 and up to 15 cm. For salting and subsequent drying of low-fat and medium-fat sea fish of pelagic species, it is better to use the dry salting method.

The horse mackerel must first be washed and dried to remove excess moisture. Then you should choose the dishes for salting.

Personally, I like ordinary household ten-liter saucepans, which can be placed in the refrigerator without any problems. Before salting, you need to pour a 0.5 mm layer of coarse salt (necessarily non-iodized) onto the bottom of the pan (or any other dish). Next, you should lay out the horse mackerel in layers, generously sprinkling each layer of fish with salt so that there is a distance of about 5 cm to the top edge of the container.

The top layer of fish is also sprinkled with salt to a thickness of 1.0 - 1.5 cm. Salts must be used for dry salting of horse mackerel, at least 12-15% of the weight of the fish. A wooden circle (plate, enamel lid, etc.) is placed on top of the last layer of horse mackerel, on which a weight (weight) weighing at least 10-15% of the weight of the fish is placed.

After about 3-4 hours, the fish, under the influence of salt, begins to release natural brine (intercellular juice containing proteins and minerals).

It is at this very moment that the dishes with fish should be placed in the refrigerator at a temperature of +3-5 degrees for 2-3 days. After salting, the mackerel should be carefully washed under running cold water, removing excess brine (you can do this in a large colander, and then leave the fish in it to drain the water).

The question of how to properly hook a horse mackerel, by the tail or by the head, is decided arbitrarily. For example, I like to hang mackerel, hooking it to the lower jaw with a regular paper clip, on the balcony of a high-rise building (6-10 floors), where there is good and stable air circulation.

You can also hang horse mackerel on hangers with flyers in the courtyard of a private house, having previously determined where the breeze constantly blows.

In the latter option, I strongly recommend that you cover the horse mackerel caught through the eye with gauze soaked in 9% vinegar to protect against cheese flies. After 4-5 days, at a temperature of 20-26 degrees and a humidity of no more than 80%, the horse mackerel is well dried. The readiness of horse mackerel is determined as follows: the back of the finished dried fish is shrunken, the meat is elastic-hard, when cut it has an even grayish-yellow color, and the caviar is orange-red.

I like to consume dried horse mackerel exclusively according to the Astrakhan classic method, dipping its peeled pulp into a bowl filled with mustard or unrefined sunflower oil.

I really love fish in any form and have tried a lot of cooking options. My father is a fisherman, so there are often fish “garlands” hanging on the balcony, and the smell of stewed and fried fish comes from the kitchen. And as soon as I come to visit my parents, my dad will tell me a couple more successful recipes from his fishing friends and treat me to something new. But in this article I will talk about how to properly salt fish. This salting recipe is the fastest and most versatile; it can be used to cook almost any small river or sea fish. And, of course, this is the best of all tried methods.

Black Sea horse mackerel is my favorite sea fish. Fatty, juicy, without scales and with a small amount of bones. It's easy to clean and a pleasure to eat! Black Sea horse mackerel is usually small in size and is perfect for salting, frying or stewing. For example, here is a recipe for horse mackerel shkara, a traditional dish of Black Sea fishermen. The fish turns out incredible! Here's a simple recipe for fried horse mackerel: quick and easy. In the same recipe, I will talk about how to dry fish using horse mackerel as an example.

Ingredients:

• 800 g of Black Sea horse mackerel;
• 400 g coarse table salt.

Recipe for salted dried horse mackerel.

1.So, let's start cooking the fish. In addition to fish, we will need a convenient container, preferably rectangular in shape. My horse mackerel is 10-15 cm long, and it fits perfectly in an enamel bowl. Wash the horse mackerel well under cold running water. Place the fish in a convenient container in one layer.

2. Sprinkle generously with salt so that it evenly covers the entire fish and only “mounds” remain. Layer by layer alternate fish with salt. The last layer should be made of salt.

3. Cover tightly with a lid, pressing the fish well. Just in case, you can put a weight on top. Place in the refrigerator for exactly 24 hours.

4. You can see how the fish released its juices, forming a brine solution.

5. Remove the mackerel from the salt and rinse under cold running water. Now you need to get rid of excess salt and soak the horse mackerel. We let our fish swim in a deep container with cold water for exactly an hour.

6. Take the fish out of the water and place it on a plate lined with paper towels or napkins. In principle, horse mackerel can be eaten immediately, it is ready. But if you want to dry the fish, it needs to stay in the open air for another day or two. You can leave the mackerel in the kitchen, or you can take it out to the balcony. The fish will dry well and will not freeze if you place it at a short distance from each other. And so that the fish does not take up much space, it can be hung on a thick thread or fishing line, threading the thread with a needle through the eye sockets. The result will be hanging horse mackerel. In a suspended state, the fish will be evenly aired on all sides and will be ready faster. And, of course, this way it can be stored for a long time.

7. Let the fish dry. The skin weathers the very next day, but the horse mackerel inside does not dry out and remains very tender and juicy. If you dry fish on a plate, you need to turn it on the other side at least once.

The Black Sea mackerel Trachurus mediterraneus ponticus is a small subspecies of the Mediterranean Trachurus mediterraneus.

This is a Black Sea fish a few minutes after being caught near Gurzuf.
Photo: http://egenika.gallery.ru/

A decrease in the size of individuals in a part of the population that, in one way or another, ends up in a body of water with a smaller volume of water - even if it is quite large in itself - is practically a biological law.
Similarly, the Mediterranean anchovy was crushed in the Black and Azov Seas into anchovy, the Atlantic herring in the Baltic was transformed into a subspecies of Salak, and the smelt, stuck after they were separated from the Baltic Sea, in Ladoga and Onega degenerated into smelt.
At the same time, the new subspecies differ from the original species in taste - due to the different composition of the water of the reservoir that gave them shelter and the differences in the species composition of the food supply in it.

Having settled in the Mediterranean Sea from the Atlantic some thousands of years ago, and then colonized the Black Sea, the horse mackerel has already reached Moscow. In size it is not inferior in the capital yet, but in quality compared to freshly caught fish it is quite obvious


the lens has become cloudy - and ideally the eyes should be clear, as in the first photo.

But I fell in love with it so much when I lived in Crimea - which was still Ukrainian, and therefore cosmopolitanly common - and I miss it so much that I bought one, with a clouded lens.
Moreover, in the first time after the heroic annexation of the peninsula, horse mackerel was offered in the capital for 1 thousand rubles / kg - and now I saw it at the market on Prazhskaya for 250 rubles: probably Muscovites did not understand it, they did not try it, but they are catching it now in Crimea, without regard to any norms of the maximum permissible seizure, and this overfishing needs to be sold somewhere.

The horse mackerel's intestines turned out to be empty, so I didn't gut the fish - and didn't even rip off the tail scutes


although for the sake of pomp it would be necessary.

So, without scraping out the tail stems, and placed it on a well-heated frying pan.


Only I even overheated the oil - and the delicate skin immediately burst.

But this is even good: because it is better that these prickly shields do not get into the mouth - so the skin would still have to be removed. In general, it’s a blast anyway

But no matter how much I was in a hurry to eat the fried horse mackerel with cold beer, I immediately put some of it aside and dry-salted it with Extra salt


I place the carcasses crosswise in an enamel container, and a bag - or even two - to make the pan easier to wash later.

And a day later I ran a stream of cold water under the tap: I washed off the remaining salt


and opened it across the back.

It turned out just great

Some of the lightly salted ones were eaten immediately, and a few pieces were dried: hung inside the refrigerator on straightened paper clips, clinging to the shelf bars. They hung for 6 days. I took off the hanged ones - but not yet dried: the skin is dry and taut, and the flesh inside is elastic

Just before eating - and admiring - you need to remove the skin. Use a knife blade to hook it at the base of the dorsal fin and remove it first from one side and then from the other.
And if you don’t remove it, with the shields that stretch along the side line, you can not only scratch your lips, hurt your throat, but also simply choke

Muscles shine with fat


It's incredibly delicious, I haven't been this happy in a long time.
I just salted it by eye - so I can’t tell you how much salt to put on 1 kg of fish.
It needs to be lightly salted.
Yes, and one more thing: beer, wine and vodka are not required - although they are usually wonderful in themselves - and I really like lightly salted fish with sweet black coffee and a hot egg in a bag.

And these are the scutes on the caudal peduncle that I wrote about above - which you can’t eat, and they definitely need to be torn off


This is an important systematic feature of the family. Carangidae/syn. Horse mackerel, which also includes horse mackerel, and every time I am surprised how people manage not to notice them - and confuse horse mackerel with a completely obvious and fundamentally different smooth-sided mackerel.
Well, if you are already in Crimea, try both: it is clear that there, freshly caught, they are even tastier than those brought to Moscow.

You can salt almost any fish yourself except sturgeon. One of the fish varieties suitable for salting is horse mackerel. Lean meat with a high protein content has a slightly sour taste. This sea fish is great for frying, stewing and salting. Next, we’ll talk about how you can salt horse mackerel yourself.

Spicy salted horse mackerel

Salting of fish can be done at varying degrees of intensity - moderate (160 g per 1 kg of fish) and strong (300 g per kilo of fish). Choose which method you like best. To eliminate the possibility of spoilage of fish during salting, it is necessary to use sodium benzoate (2 g per 1 kg of horse mackerel). This is a food preservative that will prevent fish from spoiling.

Required Products:

• horse mackerel;
• salt, sugar;
• preservative (sodium benzonate);
• a mixture of spices for salting fish;
• table vinegar.

Cooking process:

Before salting, be sure to wash and dry the fish, avoiding drying out. After this, place the carcasses tightly in an enamel or glass container, belly up. Layer by layer we place the fish in a bowl, sprinkling each layer with salt (100 g of salt per 1 kg of horse mackerel).

To give mackerel an unusual delicate taste, you can add a mixture of spices and sugar to the salt for the layer. Spices are mixed in a 1:1 ratio (mixture consumption 25-30 g per 1 kg of table salt). Sugar gives a special delicate taste to the finished product.

After all the fish are placed in the container, cover the fish on top with a thick layer of a mixture of salt, preservative, sugar and pickling spices. To speed up the process of salting fish and make the meat light, add a little table vinegar.

We put pressure on top (a large jar of water) and place it in a fairly cool place (5-8°C). For oppression, it is better to take solid wooden circles made from aspen or linden. This tree withstands salty environments well and does not emit resins or tannins.

After a few days, the fish is ready to eat. We remove the oppression, take out the required amount of fish and put the oppression back.

We wash the horse mackerel under the tap, gut it, cut off the head, and cut the carcass into portions. Place the fish in a fan on a plate and garnish with fresh parsley and lemon wedges. Fish can be served as an appetizer or main course. Boiled or baked potatoes with vegetable salad are perfect as a side dish. Bon appetit!