How to clean river perch. How to quickly descale sea bass. Methods for cleaning perch

Housewives do not want to cook dishes from perch because of the difficult process of cleaning the scales, which clog the entire kitchen. Do not refuse tasty and cooked fish in any way. You will learn how to quickly clean it from scales and the sharp fins will not hurt your hands, and the kitchen will be clean.

Quickly remove scales from the perch - choose the right knife

Use the following kitchen tools to clean perch:

  • a sharp steel knife with a wide and thick blade. With it you can easily deal with fins, fish spine and scales. Choose a knife with a handle that is made of anti-slip material. Such a knife will never fall out of your hands while cleaning slippery perch;
  • saw blade One side is intended for ordinary products, and the other for fish and meat. Sharp teeth will quickly cut through fish bones and help quickly peel scales;
  • scraper knife. Indispensable for fish lovers, you can easily deal with scales with it.

It's good if you buy a special cutting board for fish. You secure the perch to the board with special clamps, and both hands will be free. And if you buy a drum machine designed for cleaning scales from any fish, the unpleasant kitchen work will go faster. Load the fish into the machine and pour plenty of water over it. The machine operates in semi-automatic mode and the scales automatically fall off the perch.

Quickly remove the scales of the perch along with the skin

Trim all fins from the prepared fish with sharp scissors. Cut off the head and freeze the fish a little in the freezer. Put gloves on your hands and follow these simple steps:

  • place the fish on a cutting board;
  • Using a sharp knife, make an incision in the area of ​​the fish's skin higher up to the head;
  • Lift the skin with a knife and carefully remove it along with the scales, like a stocking, starting from the top of the back to the tail.

The disadvantage of this method is that fried fish without skin loses its taste.


Quickly remove scales from the perch using boiling water

Temperature changes play an important role in this quick cleaning method. Before starting the process, trim all fins from the perches and remove the gills. Your next steps are as follows:

  • place the fish in a single layer in the kitchen sink;
  • boil a full kettle of water;
  • pour boiling water over the fish on one side;
  • Turn the perch over to the other side with a spatula and pour boiling water over again.

After a couple of minutes, start cleaning the fish. Incredibly, you can remove the scales with your fingers! But better take scissors.


Quickly remove scales from perch - other methods

There are interesting ways to quickly clean scales from perches:

  • Place the fisherman's catch in a basin and sprinkle generously with salt. Leave it overnight. In the morning, there will be much less mucus on the fish, the scales will soften, and you can quickly remove them with a sharp knife;
  • original way. Insert a metal brush attachment into a small drill and remove the scales from the fish;
  • Dip the fish into boiling water. Hold it by the tail and place it in a pan of boiling water for 5-6 seconds. Do not overdo it with time, otherwise the scales will come off with the skin.


Quickly remove scales from sea bass

Sea bass is freed from scales in the same way as river bass. But there is one important point - the sharp spines on the fins of sea fish are equipped with poisonous glands. If you inject yourself, the wound will be very painful and take a long time to heal. So put on gloves and trim the fins.


We hope that these simple tips will help you quickly deal with perch scales. Small perches are more difficult to clean, but all the methods described above will work for them. And cooking delicious fish will be a joy for you.

There are a number of rules for cleaning a perch. Since this type of underwater inhabitants has small scales that sit tightly on the skin, when cleaning they can fly away in different directions, after which you will have to clean up. The choice of method depends on whether you need to peel before frying, cooking cutlets or some other dish.

To make cleaning the perch easier, you need a medium-sized container in which the fish can be washed, and a pair of cotton gloves to protect your hands from damage.

Sea bass

You can speed up the process if you purchase a drum machine. To clean sea bass, you need to load the product inside the device and fill it with a large amount of liquid. The device operates in semi-automatic mode, and the scales themselves will fall off the skin. A fish scaler helps a lot. It is possible to make such a device with your own hands at home.

It is better to clean fresh, recently caught fish: the process will require less time and effort than if the perch has been in the freezer for some time.

When cleaning a marine species, you must wear gloves and remove the fins: these parts contain poisonous glands, so the wound left from the injection will hurt and itch for a long period of time, and healing will not be quick. Sharp fins should also be removed when preparing other species: they are easy to cut.

It is important to remove the gills before frying. In this case, the rest of the head can be left if desired.

River perch

There is a simple way to clean a perch. To do this, in the evening the fish is placed in a basin and covered with a large amount of salt. Leave it overnight. The amount of mucus becomes smaller, the scales soften, and getting rid of them becomes easier.

On a special board for fish

Scissors

To cut up river inhabitants, special scissors made of stainless steel are used. First you need to remove the head, fins, and tail. The device easily cuts bones, including large and thick ones. It is convenient to cut with this tool only at the beginning of cleaning.

With a steel knife

  • A sharp steel one with a thick, wide blade will do. It is better to take a knife for cleaning perch with a handle made of anti-slip material: thanks to this, the object will not fall out of your hands when cleaning, even when they become greasy.
  • You can take a saw knife: with its help you can easily get rid of scales, cut small bones, saw through fins. It has sharpening on both sides.
  • A scraper knife is also good for this type of fish. Can be used in cases where there is a small amount of work to be done. If you take such a device, there will be less debris in the process, since the tool has a special pocket where scales are collected.

Home inventions

At home, it is possible to make a large number of different devices that make it easier to clean the scales of a perch. You can use beer bottle caps. They are attached to a wooden stick with the teeth up. It doesn’t take a lot of time or money to create such a device.

Another effective device that you can create yourself involves using a fine grater instead of beer caps. It's better to use the old one: it's less spicy. Even using a non-new option, a person can easily damage the skin of the fish when cleaning.

You can use a drill. To do this, insert an attachment in the form of a metal brush into it. This option makes it easy to clean the fish.

Removing scales along with skin

Cleaning perch in Finnish style is often used by fishermen and housewives who want to get fillets.

The method of removing the skin along with scales is used in cases where this part is not needed for cooking. To skin a perch, you must first remove the head and fins. Then the fish is put into the freezer for a short time so that the meat is frozen. Don't keep fish in the freezer for too long.

The fish should be placed on a cutting board and secured. Using a well-sharpened knife, an incision is made in the skin in the area closer to the head. Then the skin is pryed with a knife and removed. The skin comes off like a stocking. At the same time, the scales are also removed. After this, you need to get rid of the insides. Not only do you need to quickly clean the perch, but you also need to rinse it thoroughly once the internal organs are removed.

You can also remove the skin using another method. An incision is made on both sides along the dorsal fin along the entire length of the body. The fin is then removed. After this, the skin is removed; the scales are removed along with it. The spine must be broken. To do this, the head is not completely cut off. The head can be removed only after the ridge has been cut.

This option is well suited in situations where you plan to fry meat into cutlets or pickle meat. It will not be possible to cook skinless perch fillet by boiling or frying: the taste of the meat will become worse. Often people prefer to eat fillet with a golden crust, which can only be obtained by frying the skin.

If you need to clean frozen fish, the processing will be different. First, the carcass is defrosted, then the upper part of the back is removed using movements reminiscent of peeling potatoes. Remove the fins. The abdomen is cut off. Then the tail is removed. Then the skin is removed, from which the scales also come off. The head is removed last. Once it is trimmed, the internal organs are removed from the fish. The entrails are easily removed from frozen carcasses; it does not require much effort.

Using boiling water

Another option for cleaning involves using hot liquid. The fish is placed in 1 layer in the shell. You need to boil water in a kettle. On one side, the individuals are poured with boiling water. Then the underwater inhabitants are turned over to the other side and the procedure is repeated. After 2-3 minutes you should start cleaning. The scales will be easily separated even without the use of special devices and will not scatter throughout the kitchen. However, it is recommended to use special scissors.


Depending on the length of time the fish stays in boiling water, either scales or scales with skin will separate. The time required depends on the size of the individuals.

There is another way to rid a perch of scales using boiling water. To do this, holding the individual by the tail, you need to dip it in boiling water. Should be held for 5-6 seconds. A longer holding time will lead to the fact that in addition to the scales from the meat, the skin will also separate.

Fish is a healthy and vitamin-rich product. To diversify the festive and everyday menu, choose different types. The beneficial properties that river or sea perch have put it one step above its fish “brothers”, but its cleaning tires and exhausts. To make cooking a joy, you need to know the rules for cleaning it. To do this, we invite you to watch a video on how to quickly remove scales from a perch.

"Insidious" perch

This is a predator with an attractive color. He, like the ruff, has sharp fins that help him during hunting. But when cleaning the fins can hurt your hands, so this process causes negative emotions in everyone. The small scales of river or sea bass are so densely packed together on the skin that cleaning takes up most of the time and leaves a mess around. It is very difficult to wash small scales from all over the kitchen.

In this regard, many lovers of fish dishes refuse to cook perch because they do not understand how to quickly clean the fish.

Preparing for cleaning

It is better to clean perches immediately after catching them, because in a hardened state it will be difficult to free it from small scales. Also, the scales can stick together due to the large amount of mucous substances it secretes.

To understand how to easily scale a perch, you should start with preparation. And the preparatory process begins with cleaning the workplace.

To do this you need:

  • Wash the sink (you can clean it directly in it).
  • Prepare a board for cleaning fish. This should be exclusively a fish board, as the smell remains after the perch. But if you take a glass or plastic board, this can be avoided. A special board that contains a tail clip can also help with cleaning.
  • Knives or graters for cleaning fish must be sharp (to clean fish, you can use both a knife and other special devices: a homemade brush, a grater, a special knife).
  • You need to remove everything unnecessary from the table and cover it with paper or oilcloth (you can use newspapers - they will absorb excess moisture after washing the fish).

If you don’t know how to clean fish so that scales don’t fly, you need to remove them within a radius of one and a half meters all kitchen utensils.

Fish cleaning

After preparing the workplace, we begin to clean fresh river perch. Over time, you can acquire the necessary skill and do it quickly.

To cut it, you need:

  • Wash the fish from slippery coating under running water.
  • Protect your hands with work gloves.
  • The carcass itself must be stretched so that all its fins crunch. To do this, you need to take it by the head and tail and pull it until it crunches.
  • Kitchen sharp scissors cut off all fins and trim the tail.
  • Trim the head below the pectoral fins (they can be used to prepare fish soup, after first removing the gills, which give the dish a bitter taste).
  • We clean with the selected tool (knife, brush, grater) first from the tail to the head, then from the belly to the back, this way the perch will be cleaned better.
  • We wash the carcass well under running water (not hot) so that small scales do not get inside.
  • We cut the belly of the fish from the anus to the head, without inserting the knife too much so as not to damage the insides.
  • We take out the giblets (if you have caviar, carefully separate them; you can use it to prepare many tasty and healthy dishes in oven, fry on frying pan or add to the ear).
  • Wash the carcass again.

Tricks for cleaning perch

Exist some tricks in cleaning perch - both river and sea. If you use them correctly, the process will not take much time and will be much more enjoyable.

One of these home methods is to use salt: before cleaning, cover the fish with salt and leave for several hours (overnight). After this, the scales will be easier to remove, since the lamellar cover will become softer.

The second method is suitable if the fish needs to be cleaned urgently: holding the uncleaned carcass by the tail, dip it in boiling water for about 10 seconds. The main thing here is not to overcook, as the skin may come off during further cleaning. High temperatures will make the scales softer and more elastic - this will allow you to remove them quickly, without much effort.

Another method is suitable for those who are in no hurry to prepare. For example, if you need fish for frying tomorrow, you can freeze fresh perch - this will make it not so slippery, and the scales will fly out of their cells more easily.

If you plan to prepare a dish where you need to get rid of the skin of the fish, you need to keep it in boiling water longer, then the scales will be easily removed along with the skin. You can also use freezing. The fish must be kept longer in the freezer, which will make it possible to get rid of the scales along with the skin.

For some cooking processes, cleaning sea or river perch is optional. There are a lot of videos on the Internet on how to cook river perch with scales. For example, if you plan to smoke fish or grill it, then it is enough to select the offal from it, but this is not necessary. After washing the fish well under running water and salting it, you can begin cooking.

Attention, TODAY only!

How to quickly remove scales from a perch? This question interests not only housewives, but also many fishermen who often go fishing for this very tasty fish. In this article, we decided to reveal several secrets of cleaning the mentioned product. If you use our tips, you will never again need a lot of time to carry out this time-consuming and not very pleasant process.

General information

Before I tell you how to quickly descale a perch, I would like to say a few words about the presented product itself.

As you know, this fish belongs to the Perch family. She has sharp fins on the lower as well as on the upper part of her body. It should also be said that it differs from the other in that it has rather small and firmly seated scales. That is why so many housewives are interested in the question of how to quickly clean scales from a perch.

As a rule, the weight presented ranges from 850 g to 1.4 kg. But experienced fishermen often encounter larger specimens. Perch lives in fresh rivers, reservoirs and even in the sea.

Use in cooking

Perch is a very tasty fish that can be boiled, steamed, salted and fried. So, there is an incredible number of all kinds of recipes, using which you can make completely different dishes and snacks. And here the logical question arises about whether it is necessary to clean the perch at all. Of course yes. But, unfortunately, as mentioned above, the scales of the presented fish cling very tightly to the body. In addition, the fins of the perch are so sharp that they can easily injure you during processing. In this regard, in this article we decided to tell you how to quickly clean the scales of a perch. If you follow these tips, this process will not seem so difficult to you.

Details on how to clean perch scales

The first thing the housewife should know is that fresh perch is much easier to clean than stale perch. First, you should trim all the fins from the purchased fish using scissors. This is necessary to avoid getting pricked with them in the future. Next you need to cut off the head of the fish. After this, you need to put on gloves and arm yourself with cutlery. Using a fork, press the perch's tail and use a sharp knife to pry up the scales and carefully remove them. It is most convenient to carry out this procedure from the belly to the back.

Negative features of this method

Now you know how to clean the scales of a perch. However, this method has a significant disadvantage. It consists in the fact that the scales scatter almost throughout the kitchen. In addition, the presented method requires special effort and a lot of free time. In this regard, we want to tell you about another tricky method.

How to remove scales and skin from a perch?

This method can be used if you do not want to disrupt the order in your kitchen. To do this, you need to cut off all the fins and head of fresh fish, and then place it in the freezer for a short time. When the perch is slightly frozen, you should take it out, place it on a cutting board and, prying the skin with a knife, easily remove it along with all the scales.

Disadvantages of the method

The presented scale removal of perch is well suited for those who plan to make minced fish or simply salt it. As for frying and boiling, it is not advisable to use this method.

Cleaning fish in the field

If the question of how to clean a perch from scales is asked not by the housewife, but by the fisherman, then we suggest using the following method.

So, you need to nail iron caps taken from beer bottles to a convenient and simple wooden stick. You may need about 5-7 caps for this. By the way, instead of such a device, it is permissible to use a regular old grater.

Once the device is ready, it can be immediately used for its intended purpose. Ribbed lids are used to scrape off all the scales from the perch. However, it is advisable to carry out this process outdoors, since the scales will fly in all directions.

The easiest way

If you don’t want to spend a long time cleaning freshwater fish with a knife, but also don’t want to make special devices, you can purchase them at any hardware store.

It should be noted that today on the product market there is a wide range of universal devices specifically designed for cleaning fish. A huge advantage of such devices is that they have a pocket for collecting scales. That is why they can be used to clean perch not only in the field, but also at home. However, when purchasing such devices, you should pay special attention to their quality, including the thickness of the metal. After all, if this product is made of thin material, then during cleaning the fish it may bend or even break.

Cleaning sea bass

As mentioned above, perch can be found in both freshwater rivers and salty seas. However, they can be cleaned in exactly the same ways. Although it should be noted that sea bass is a very spiny fish that has poisonous glands on its fins. And if a person pricks himself on them, the wound can be very painful for a long time. That is why before cleaning this fish you should definitely wear gloves and first cut off all the fins.

In addition to everything else, you can safely add a few of the following tips:

  1. Before directly cleaning the sea bass, it should be immersed in boiling water for a few seconds. The main thing is not to overdo it. Otherwise, the skin of the fish may peel off along with its scales.
  2. To greatly facilitate the process of cleaning such fish, it should be placed in a container, covered with coarse rock salt and left in this form overnight. In the morning, perches can be easily and quickly removed from their scales using a regular knife.
  3. If you plan to smoke perch, you should not peel it at all.

Cleaning small fish

Surely many fishermen know that in the winter season small fish are most often caught. It is, of course, very tasty, but there are a lot of problems with it. It is better to clean such perch immediately after catching, along with the skin. To do this, you need to make 2 cuts along the upper fin (from head to tail). By the way, the knife should be as sharp as possible. Next, the skin along with the scales should be carefully removed, helping yourself with both hands.

Using this method, you can clean a large number of small fish in a few minutes. However, it should be noted that the main disadvantage of this method is that you will not get a crispy crust when frying perch in a frying pan. Although nothing will dare to stop you from enjoying the tender meat of freshly caught fish.

Many housewives refuse to prepare their favorite fish dishes only because they do not want to spend time and effort on pre-processing the main component. But if, before cleaning a perch, you familiarize yourself with the basic rules of manipulation, you can significantly simplify your task. To quickly rid fish of sharp fins and small scales, you need to use not the traditional approach, but its improved analogue. By the way, in this way you can clean not only river perch, but also its sea counterpart.

In what cases can you refuse cleaning?

Before cleaning a perch, you need to decide on the purpose of the product. If you plan to dry or dry the fish, no cleaning is required; it is enough to rinse the carcasses thoroughly. Sometimes additional manipulations are required depending on the specifics of the recipe. To prepare hot-smoked sea or river perch, it is also recommended to leave the giblets. In this case, the final dish will be very juicy and aromatic.

Tip: The process of cleaning sea and river fish is practically no different. The approach to a seafood product has only one feature - before working with the carcass, you should cut off the very sharp spines on the fins, which can easily get hurt.

It is also not necessary to scale fresh fish that you plan to grill or bake on the grill. Very small perches, which are sometimes used to prepare the first broth for fish soup, cannot be processed in this way. But it is still advisable to quickly remove the gills and giblets. Their presence can spoil the taste of the dish.

Secrets of removing scales from the surface of a perch

If you plan to cook the perch in some other way, it must be removed from scales and entrails. To do this easily and quickly, you should adopt the following techniques and recommendations from professionals:

  • Don't put off cleaning. The fresher the fish, the easier it will be to bring it to the desired state, spending a minimum of time on it.
  • Perches are quite slippery, even if you initially rub them with fish. Therefore, you should wear cloth gloves to securely hold the carcasses.

  • Place the perch on a cutting board, hold it by the tail and pull strongly on the head until a crunch is heard. If you do this, the scales will come off very easily.
  • If necessary, cut off the fins with scissors; they won’t be useful anyway.
  • To quickly get rid of all the scales, you need to work with a knife or a profile device not only from the tail to the head, but also from the abdomen to the back, working diagonally.
  • Care must be taken when gutting perch. If you accidentally damage the gallbladder, the liquid will flood the meat, giving it bitterness. In addition, all signs of black film, which can also spoil the taste of the product, should be completely removed.
  • In case of damage to the membranes of internal organs, you need to act quickly, then the product can still be saved. First, the carcass must be washed, then rub the damaged areas with salt. We wait 10 minutes, rinse the workpiece again. We take a sharp knife and remove traces of bile from the surface of the meat, removing small areas of pulp if necessary. You should not spare the component; if the cleaning is poor, the fish will emit an unpleasant odor and be so bitter that it will be impossible to eat.

  • If time allows, then before cleaning the fish should be salted, thoroughly coated with coarse table salt. We wait a few hours and start cleaning. After this treatment, the scales will come off easily.
  • Also, the process of removing scales is facilitated by pre-freezing the component or scalding it with boiling water. True, the second approach is considered too risky. If you keep the product in water, not only the scales, but also the skin will begin to peel off.

When cleaning fish, you need to act not only quickly, but also correctly, otherwise the entire kitchen will be covered with small scales, which will soon begin to emit an unpleasant odor. To prevent this, it is necessary to carry out the manipulation under running water or in a basin with liquid. If the farm has special devices for cleaning fish with containers for collecting scales, it is worth using them.

How can you quickly clean a perch, including the skin?

If the recipe requires only fish fillets, you need to approach cleaning the carcasses differently. There is a very simple way to process the product, the implementation of which will take literally a few minutes.

  • Place the washed and dried component on a cutting board.
  • We make cuts on both sides of the dorsal fin, pull it out, trimming the meat if necessary, and throw it away.
  • We cut the skin around the head. We grab it and pull it from head to tail, removing it like a stocking. If the element slips out of your hands, you can use pliers for convenience. By the way, the process will go much faster if you first soak the carcass in boiling water, holding it by the tail.
  • All that remains is to separate the head and gut the carcass, after which you can remove the fillet from the bones and use it for its intended purpose.

An undeniable advantage of perch is that the cut out fins and heads of these fish, as well as the skin, peeled from scales, can be used to prepare broth. But, in any case, the resulting liquid will need to be filtered several times through double gauze so that small bones from the fins or scales do not get into the dish.

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