Sprats have always been and always will be frequent guests at our tables. Even the simplest sandwich with them is very encouraging and delight during a snack. And lovers of such a fish, aware that this is not some kind of "breed", but only a way of cooking, learned to do it on their own. Those who followed their example completely abandoned canned food, since cooking sprats at home is easy, they turn out to be surprisingly cheap and incredibly tasty. Everyone can see for themselves.
Home sprats
Fish is suitable for them, both fresh and frozen. The latter will need to be completely thawed. To cook sprats at home from capelin, each carcass needs to be gutted and its head cut off (torn off). Then the fish is washed well, the water drains, and the carcasses are densely stacked with their backs up in a low saucepan (stewpan) or a deep frying pan. Refueling in preparation. Grams of 800 capelin brew a glass of very strong tea (black only, no exotic varieties!), Strain it from the thick and combine with a glass of vegetable oil and a teaspoon of coarse salt. You can pour in "liquid smoke", but it's still chemistry that is best avoided. Over time, when sprats at home from capelin will become familiar to you in cooking, you can add any spices to your fill if you are sure that they will not kill a specific sprat taste. The container is put on a slow fire, and the fish is stewed for two hours. Do not disturb - carcasses may fall apart. Sprats should cool in the same pan. Only then can they be transferred to a convenient tray and sprinkled with oil.
Home-made sprats in the oven
This recipe is best used if your fish is not frozen. For half a kilogram of capelin, two more onions and carrots are taken. They are cut large, and half of these vegetables line the bottom of the ducklings (or another container that you use when cooking in the oven). Laurel, cloves and allspice (little by little) are poured on them, the fish is laid out and covered with the second half of the vegetables. Future sprats at home from capelin are poured with a stack of sunflower oil and a glass of water. The container is tightly closed; if there is any doubt about the tightness of the lid, the edges are carefully coated with the simplest test. An hour and a half in the oven, brought to two hundred degrees - and your sprats are ready.
Sprats in a multicooker
The capelin is prepared in the same way - it is cleaned, gutted, decapitated and laid out as tightly as possible in the apparatus bowl. As in the first recipe, tea is brewed and filtered (if you are afraid that it will not be strong enough, for the first time use the ratio of five tablespoons per quarter liter of boiling water). Four spoons of sunflower oil and three of soy sauce are poured into it. You can put a little laurel, cloves and pepper - allspice and black. This composition poured the sprats placed in the multicooker at home from the capelin, the extinguishing mode is turned on, and the timer is set for two hours. Remove fish from the solution only after complete cooling.
Sprats from sprats
Most often sprats are made at home from capelin, but this is not a prerequisite. In principle, any fish will do; They say that even a small river will fit, despite its bony. But the second most popular after capelin is sprat. It is also easy to make sprats from it at home, and you can buy this fish in any store or in the nearby market. A kilogram of sprats is gutted and lost goals; a pair of tablespoons of oil is poured into the bottom of a thick-bottomed pan like a ducklings and a layer of onion husks is laid out (you can without it, but it will give the "correct" color to the sprats). Then the sprat is laid out, in several layers, upside down and sprinkled with spices: not ground pepper, cloves, laurel, coriander and salt. Each seasoning will need about a spoon. Stacked sprats are poured with a glass of strong tea, the same amount of sunflower oil, two tablespoons of vinegar and half a glass of white wine. When closed, the pan is placed on the fire and left to boil for four hours after boiling. Then the lid is removed, and the sprats languish until the excess moisture disappears. They cool off under the lid right in the pan.
Sprats from bleak
Home-made sprats from capelin or sprats are, of course, good, but you should not forget about other fish. The same bleak is considered to be waste, weedy fish, but it is a pity to throw it away (especially if the fisherman present in the house hasn’t caught anything larger). True, it will have to be cleaned before cooking sprats at home, but fresh it is done with a flick of the wrist, especially since you don’t need to gut it, just take off the scales. Further actions are similar to cooking sprats from sprats; the difference is primarily that it is filled only with oil, and so that it completely disappears under it. You can deal with spices based on your preferences. Another feature: after boiling, foam forms on the surface - it will need to be removed. A kilogram of fish will be stewed for about three hours (depending on the diameter of the pan and, accordingly, the number of layers). But when the process is over, it will taste completely natural and high-quality sprats.
A few words in conclusion
Some chefs, having mastered sprats from capelin, can easily apply the recipe to large fish. The principles of its processing and culinary actions remain the same, only the cooking time will need to be calculated based on the size of the carcass. Of course, you won’t put such a “sprat” on a sandwich, but with a side dish, on the second, it is eaten with great desire.