How to clean herring quickly and without bones

Herring dishes - traditional cold appetizer on the festive table. Served in a marinated form with a side dish, used as an ingredient for the preparation of salads, combined with seafood, vegetables and herbs. One of the most delicious snacks is the herring of spicy salting. The difficulty in serving is to independently clean the fish fillet from scales and ridge.

Due to small bones and other waste, it takes a lot of time to process. We use a simple but effective method for quick cleaning of herring. The process begins with fish in the store. The speed and ease of cleaning scales and bones depends on its quality.

Choosing quality fish

You can determine the quality by the criteria presented in the table.

What to look for	What should be
Date of manufacture and expiration date	When choosing a canned herring in a store, pay attention to the date of catch and the factory where they put the product in the jar. Evaluate the appearance of the package - there should be no dents or traces of rust.
Fish scales	The scales are light silver in color without spots and side patches.
Gills	Gills with a dark red tint. If, by clicking on them, a blood stain forms, the fish is not worth buying, the allocation is an indicator of a violation of the rules of salting.
Abdomen	Fans of herring caviar or milk should pay attention to the appearance of the abdomen of the fish. Press lightly on it to determine the quality of the content that "appears" out.
Carcass density	The carcass is dense and elastic, without any signs of damage.
Smell	Quality indicator - a fresh, pleasant fishy smell. An extraneous "darling" speaks of the corruption of the product. Acceptable aroma - subtle notes of seasonings used for brine workpieces.

Dishes from herring are best served in the form of a hand-made fillet. Buying whole salted fish is more profitable than purchasing a semi-finished product.

Video tips

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Be thoroughly prepared for the process of cleaning herring from the bones. Take care of the necessary appliances and additional tools in advance.

Tool	Appointment
Well sharpened fish knife	Sharpen your cutlery before cooking. From the sharpness of the blade depends: the efficiency and speed of peeling herring, cutting the fillet into flat parts.
Latex gloves	Gloves will protect the skin of the hands from cuts with a sharp blade, injections of bones and the smell of herring.
Cutting board	Protect the working surface of the table with a cutting board designed for working with fish. Give preference to plastic utensils, which are more practical and more convenient than wooden. The latter absorbs fish oil, sucrose, intestines and for a long time retains the smells of products.
Cling film	For the convenience of cleaning fish waste, protection from smell and fat, wrap the cutting board with cling film, and at the end of the work, roll and discard.
Additional funds	Tweezers will be required to safely remove small bones from the fish and “splinter” from the palms, if the bones are “stuck” into the skin of the hands. After cleaning the herring, wash the cutting board with a special product. And for freshness and elimination of unpleasant odors - wipe the working surface of the table and palms with lemon juice.

The effectiveness of herring cleaning depends on skills. So, the translational movements made by the thumb in the direction of the ridge will help to clean the fish much faster and better. With the characteristic movement of the knife, the skin almost automatically departs from the loin. The application of the technique requires practical experience. But for amateur chefs, there are ways to quickly clean herring at home:

Method number 1 - classic

Prepare the herring for cleaning by rinsing the fish with cold water and removing excess salt and mucus.
Use a sharp knife to separate your head.
Remove the tail - the unclaimed portion of the fish. Rinse the herring again under running water to prevent small bones from getting into the fillet.
Cut the lower part of the herring in a straight line, moving in the direction from the head to the tail. Make an incision at the ridge up to 1 cm in size. Through it, remove the “filling”, including caviar. After removing the viscera, rinse the carcass, wipe with a cloth. Get wet and the inside, removing the veins and intestines, so that the fillet turns out without a taste of bitterness.
Scrape off the dark film from the carcass with a knife.
Herring skin is easily “pulled together” if you grab it by the edge on each side of the fish.
Fillet is removed by the method of "capture", starting from the head and moving towards the tail. So small bones are found in a herring that it is not always possible to remove them. Feel free to cut a little loin along with the smallest bones.
After the manipulations, two pieces of fish fillet, cleaned of bones and scales, are obtained. Remove the remaining bones with tweezers.

Method number 2 - painstaking

Prepare the fish for cleansing: wash, cut off the head, divide the body into two parts and remove the entrails in the manner described above.
Removal of the tail is done differently: hold both ends of the herring firmly with both hands, after several circular movements of the carcass in different directions.
After "returning the fish to its original position," using force, tear the carcass in half with a pulling motion, holding the two tail parts.
In one hand there will be a herring tail, in the other - a fillet, from which it remains to remove the bones.

The crucial stage is the removal of the ridge and large bones:

Take the herring in both hands, turning the belly towards you.
With your thumbs, feel for the location of the ridge from inside the fish.
Divide the carcass into two halves so that the "groped" bones remain on the same loin portion of the herring.
Gently press down the ridge on the inside, but on the outside, sort the bones with your fingers, removing it from the herring.
Perform similar actions with the second half of the fish.

There is another way to clean herring from bones without a knife - using scissors.

Video Description

Method number 3 - cleaning with kitchen scissors

Cut the fish away from the ridge by removing the skin. Starting from tail to head, cut the carcass with sharp kitchen scissors. It is convenient for them to remove the fins of the herring and internal contents from the abdomen. The advantage of using scissors is to simplify the process by removing unwanted parts in one motion.

Take advantage of this and other technologies for cleansing herring from bones. Observing the safety rules, you will be able to "chop" herring in a short time, having received a clean fillet, which remains only to be made out for serving.