How to cut a sturgeon correctly, at home, step by step
Before cooking sturgeon fish, it is very important to cut it properly. It has its own structural features that must be taken into account when processing. This directly affects the quality of the finished dish.
This fish has no bones. Cartilage and a notochord, which is more often called a viziga (it is required for removal), runs along its back. The surface of the skin is covered with hard cartilage formations, which also need to be disposed of.
How to butcher a sturgeon – remove cartilage and notochord
The cutting process step by step can be represented as follows:
- Remove the head along with the fins and humerus. This is easily done with two oblique cuts in the gill area.
- Cut off the bugs on the back, and with them the dorsal fins. This requires a sharp knife. Peel off the skin gently.
- Remove any remaining fins. The ventral and anal are cut flush with the surface. Remove the caudal in a straight line perpendicular to the dorsal cartilage.
- Now you can carefully pick up the vizig and slowly pull it out. This is a dense vein that acts as a notochord. It has the peculiarity of accumulating toxic substances after the death of the fish, so it must be removed without damaging it.
- The carcass must be divided into links. Each of them should be cleaned, rinsed well from blood clots.
- If the fish is large, then divide the link into 2-4 parts so that the mass of each of them does not exceed 5 kg, and the length is 60 cm.
Subsequent processing manipulations depend on the method of preparation of the sturgeon.
Before boiling whole links, they need to be poured with boiling water – so the remnants of mucus will be easily washed off, and further processing will be faster. Clean the entire surface of the skin with a knife, getting rid of small cartilaginous bristles – bugs. In this case, protein formations will appear.
After finishing cleaning, rinse well with cool water. To avoid deformation during and after cooking, the link is tied with twine
Before frying, at the links, you need to cut off the cartilage, pour over boiling water and peel off the bugs. To prepare portioned pieces, they must be scalded immediately before heat treatment. To do this, they are placed in water with a temperature of 97-98 degrees for 2 minutes. For 1 kg of fish you need 4 liters of boiling water. From this procedure, the carcass will lose 10-15%. Then you need to rinse again in water.
If the fish is frozen, it should be allowed to thaw under normal conditions at room temperature. This will take 6-10 hours.
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