Due to the fact that the sanitary service of the Russian Federation imposed a ban on Latvian products, many Russians cannot buy Riga Gold sprats. And how delicious the fish was! It can now be purchased, but much more expensive. But you can enjoy delicious small fish without any problems! To do this, you just need to cook sprats at home. It will not take you much effort and material costs. Just follow the simple instructions given in our article. Do you know that sprats can be prepared from river fish? So do not rush to give all this little thing that got into the network to a cat. Bleeding is an excellent base material for sprats.
Repeat the industrial process at home
This recipe is suitable for those who have at their disposal a smokehouse. Sprats, contrary to the ideas of inexperienced people, are not some special kind of fish, but the method of its preparation. But not all inhabitants of the seas and rivers are suitable for the honorable role of becoming the contents of the jar of Riga Gold. It should be small fish. In the Baltic States, sprats are used for sprats, sprats, kilka, sprats, capelin. Herring fry are also suitable.
The fish is smoked in hot smoke without any preliminary preparation (that is, with heads and entrails). Sprats then undergo a minimum of processing. They simply have their heads removed, laid beautifully on the banks, poured with vegetable oil and canned. But how to make sprats of fish at home?
Pour coarse salt into a tray that has the ability to drain liquid. Distribute in an even layer. We spread the gutted fish without scales, but with heads. Pour it with salt. After two hours, shake the grains and hang the fish in a home smokehouse. To create smoke we use shavings of fruit trees and alder.
Turn smoked fish into sprats
After forty minutes, the curing process can be stopped. Cool and air the fish. We remove the heads. Now prepare the marinade. We make very strong black tea. On a glass of boiling water you need to take three bags. Dissolve a teaspoon of sugar in tea and cool. Add two glasses of vegetable oil to the drink, 2 tbsp. l salt, 4 tbsp. l vinegar or lemon juice, a glass of cognac and spices: peppercorns, coriander, caraway seeds, fennel. We put the fish in one layer in a refractory form.
Then pour the marinade so that the liquid completely covers the contents and tighten the form with foil. We place the mold in the oven and process at a temperature not lower than 60, but not higher than 90 degrees. Pasteurization time depends on the size of the fish, but on average it is two hours. Then the sprats cooked at home should be cooled by opening the oven door. We put it in a glass jar and store in the refrigerator for no more than a week.
Smokeless Recipe
What if we cannot smoke fish with hot smoke? Nothing wrong! Even in ordinary urban cuisine, you can cook sprats at home. For this, any small fish without scales is suitable. Freshly frozen food should be allowed to thaw at room temperature. Pour a glass of unrefined sunflower oil into a cast-iron skillet or pot (that is, into that dish that is suitable for long stewing).
We put it on a fire to bask. Also put a boiling kettle with water. Peel and finely chop two onions. In a teapot, pour a tablespoon with a slide of black tea (can be with bergamot). Pour a glass of boiling water and let the tea brew. We put half a kilogram of a small fish and onion in the heated oil. Once the last one is gilded, we pour in a strong tea leaves (carefully having traced it from the thick), add two bay leaves, five peppercorns and sea salt.
We cover the boiler or pan, and make the fire minimal. We stew for quite a while - because we need the fish bones to completely soften. From time to time we mix with a wooden spatula, but carefully so that the fish do not break. If the moisture has evaporated, you need to add boiling water.
Recipe in a multicooker for capelin
Now we will consider how to make sprats at home, if the fish with our scales is not so small. In this case, she will have to tinker with. We clean a kilogram of capelin, free it from the insides and cut off the heads. Tea for this type of fish needs more. It will not only give the capelin a beautiful bronze hue, but also help maintain its shape and not fall apart when extinguished. Take ten tea bags in a glass of boiling water. Let the tea leaves brew and cool a little.
In a bowl, mix a quarter cup of unrefined vegetable oil, tea and a large spoon of sea salt, and then mix. Sprats at home from capelin are better and faster to cook in a slow cooker. You will be spared the trouble of constantly monitoring the process. We put the fish in the multicooker bowl. Add peppercorns, bay leaves, other seasonings. You can use the "Liquid Smoke" spice - just one tablespoon is enough. Pour the tea-oil marinade into the bowl and set the “Stew” mode, and the timer for two hours.
Sprats from herring at home
This rather large fish needs not only to be pre-cleaned, gutted and cut off, but also a little darkened in the oven. Spread herring tightly, backs up. Tomim at low temperatures. After this, the fish should be allowed to brew in their own juice. We make very strong black tea. When the infusion has cooled, dilute it with 100 ml of vegetable oil, add spices and salt.
Pour the herring with this marinade so that the liquid covers the fish. We put in the oven preheated to 150 degrees. After some time, lower the temperature to 120 degrees. We bake for about two hours, let cool with the oven door closed. We carefully take out the sprats and transfer them into clean and dry glass jars. Such a delicacy can be stored in the refrigerator tightly closed for about two weeks.
Sprats from sprats
First, we remove the heads of the fish, and if the carcasses are large, then the insides. We wash a pound of freshly prepared sprats. Three tea bags pour a glass of boiling water. Let’s brew well for half an hour. Put the prepared fish in a single layer in a ducklings or in a cast-iron frying pan with high sides, pouring tea leaves. Sprinkle with crumbled bouillon cube with the aroma of smoked meats.
Pour one hundred grams of vegetable oil - for sprats of sprats at home, refined sunflower or olive oil is suitable. The bouillon cube already contains salt and spices, so they need to be added to the fish in smaller quantities than in previous recipes. We put a container with sprats on a very small fire of the stove.
Stew under the lid for about an hour. During this time, the tea should evaporate, and only fish and oil remain in the dishes. Turn off the fire and let it cool slowly. If the sprat is immediately transferred to the jars, then it will immediately fall apart. Fill the fish with the oil in which it was stewed.
Beautiful sprats
Baltic delicacy "Riga Gold" pleased not only the stomach, but also the eye. The fish in such a tin can were bronze-colored, whole, shiny. To make such sprats at home, you just need to save, and not throw away onion husks. We need her two generous handfuls. We wash the husk, pour a glass of water and put on fire. After boiling, cook for twenty minutes.
Then filter, and discard the used husk. At the same time, we brew very strong tea (four bags per glass of boiling water), cool. You can dissolve in a still warm tea a large spoonful of salt and a little sugar. Gutted fish without a head (herring, fry herring, sprat, hamsa) is placed on a baking sheet or in a fireproof form very tightly with its backs up. Fill half a glass of vegetable oil.
A little need to move the form so that the fat penetrates into the cracks between the fish. Put on top bay leaves, peppercorns, other spices as desired. We mix tea and broth of onion husks, we fill them with fish. We put in a preheated oven and cook first at 150 degrees. When the liquid boils over the fish, reduce the heat to 120, after which we bake for two hours.
River fish sprats at home
Not only the inhabitants of the seas are suitable as a basic product for a delicacy. Sprats can be prepared from bleak, asp, pike and perch. But river fish need a special approach. You need to gut the carcasses, cut off the heads, rinse thoroughly. Two onions are peeled and chopped with thin rings. We take a thick-walled saucepan or pan. At the bottom of the container lay out a layer of onion rings.
Then we put a layer of fish. Sprinkle it with crumbled bay leaves and pepper and salt. Put the onions again, place the fish on top. Add spices. The uppermost layer should be onions. We make a filling, for this, pour four hundred tablespoons of vinegar into four soup spoons of vegetable oil. Shake the marinade and fill it with the contents of the saucepan. We put it in the oven and cook at 140 degrees for about five hours.
What is useful homemade product
The sprat recipe at home is versatile. You can cook a delicacy of any fish. Unlike a store product, there will be no preservatives or dubious stabilizers in it. That is why home-made sprats are not stored as long as factory canned food. Maximum two weeks in a sealed container in the refrigerator! But such sprats are eaten much faster than the shelf life expires.