How can you quickly peel a herring with your own hands?

Herring is an extremely healthy and tasty product that can decorate any meal. However, many housewives deliberately avoid using herring in cooking because of the large amount of bones in the fish. You should not deprive yourself of delicious food just because of the prospect of a long and painstaking removal of bones, because there are many ways to do this quickly and effortlessly. This article will tell you how you can quickly peel a herring without spending a lot of time.

What is required?

To effectively remove the bones from herring, you need to stock up on some cooking tools, such as:

• a sharp, medium-sized knife;
• kitchen scissors;
• glass cutting board.

These attachments will be enough to save time when cleaning this fish. Now it’s time to get acquainted with several effective methods of cleaning herring with your own hands, which any housewife can handle.

Method one: classic cleaning

This method is especially common among lovers of fish dishes, as it is simple and effective. In addition, as a result, the herring fillet turns out to be very even and beautiful, which is important if you need to aesthetically decorate the dish. To get a neat result, it is enough to use a knife and a cutting board when working.

Now you need to prepare the carcass – for this, the following technique is used:

• the herring ridge should be cut immediately at the base of the head, while gently and slowly sipping the fish’s head towards you. If done correctly, the head will easily separate from the carcass, and part of the viscera will separate with it, reaching behind the head;
• then it is necessary to rip the belly of the fish with a sharp knife, examining the insides. If there is milk or yastyk with herring caviar, it must be carefully removed;
• using a knife, you should carefully and carefully scrape off the insides that have not left with your head, as well as the black film inside the fish;
• after that, all existing fins are removed and the tail is cut off.

This completes the preparation of the carcass, and you can proceed directly to cleaning the herring from the bones. It is necessary:

• cut the fish along the ridge. The incision is made quite deep, with the capture of skin and meat;
• then the skin is removed from the mascara. This must be done very delicately so that the fillet is not damaged;
• now it remains only to turn the fish towards you with its belly, and, having felt the ridge, slowly separate it from both parts of the fillet.

This will remove almost all of the bones. If something still remains, then these bones must be carefully pulled out by hand.

Method two: punching

This technique is attractive in that it does not require a knife or kitchen scissors to complete it. The process in this case takes place quite quickly and is carried out exclusively by hand. However, it is worth noting one significant drawback of this method – after its implementation, a lot of bones remain in the fillet, which are then removed manually or using tweezers.

Here’s how to clean fish by pushing:

• the carcass is prepared – the insides, skin and fins are removed, then the herring must be rinsed with cool water;
• then you need to take the carcass in such a way that the thumb is on its back, while the rest are located inside the fish. Gently squeezing your fingers, you need to slowly squeeze out the fillet from the bones, working first on one half, and then on the other.

After that, the remaining fillets should be inspected for the presence of bones and, if necessary, removed. This method is especially good when the fish is still very fresh – in this case, cleaning will be quick and easy.

Method three: cleaning in one stroke

This method may seem fantastic, because few people believe that herring can be cleaned almost instantly. However, this is really possible, and it is not at all difficult to do this, although the hostess will need some skill.

It should be noted that before cleaning, it is imperative to gut the carcass, separate all fins, remove the head and remove the skin from the herring. Then the following action is performed:

• the herring must be taken with both hands, and each hand must hold the corresponding half of the tail of the fish;
• after that, you need to carefully, but quickly break the carcass in half.

If everything was done correctly, then one of the halves will be a clean boneless fillet, it remains only to cut off a part of the tail. The other half will need to be cleaned of the ridge with bones in the usual, classical way.

This method is quite quick, but it can lead to the fact that the fillet will have an unaesthetic, “torn” appearance, so it is better to use it when the aesthetics of the herring is not of paramount importance – for example, when preparing salads.

Sometimes, after cleaning the herring, it may turn out that small bones still remain in the fillet and are located quite deep. Ordinary tweezers will help get rid of them – with its help, removing the remnants of bones is quite simple and quick.