Herring is a very popular fish, it is used in salads, appetizers, pickled and salted. Herring is a very successful and most common snack on holiday tables, but usually it is served just gutted and cut into pieces, which is rather inconvenient and dirty in future use. Many housewives also prefer to use preserves from herring for appetizers and salads, as it is convenient and consider that it is long and difficult to cut whole herring, but in preserves it is not always fish of good quality and taste, and various preservatives are also added to it.
We offer you several ways to properly and quickly cut herring into pitted and skinless fillets. You will surprise all guests with such a beautiful fish. In order to properly cut herring, we first need to prepare everything necessary for this. We will need a sharp knife, several napkins, a cutting board and cling film.
Method number 1: So that the workplace is clean and doesn’t have to after a long time remove the cutting board from the unpleasant smell of fish, wrap it with cling film, after all the manipulations with the fish, simply remove the film and discard, and the board will be clean and odorless.
Put the herring with your belly towards you, cut off your head, run the knife inside and carefully cut the entire abdomen, being careful not to cut the inside too much so that the fillet is not bitter.
Then pull out all the entrails, if you get caviar or milk, separate it from the inedible and wipe it with a napkin, you can cut into slices and serve with a chopped herring, decorating everything. Use a napkin in the middle of the abdomen to remove the black film and the vessel that goes directly under the ridge itself. Also wipe the fish from the outside so that there are no drips anywhere.
Wrap herring tightly in cling film and tap the table several times on both sides. Such manipulation will allow the meat to easily lag behind the bones.
Remove the film and place the herring with the cut abdomen on a cutting board. Press with your hand on top of the whole herring, our fish should fully open.
Then turn it over to the back and carefully remove the ridge, where you need to help your fingers cut the meat from the bones. When you remove the ridge, use your fingers to probe all the fillets for the rest of the bones, they can easily be removed with tweezers.
There is one final touch - skin removal. Turn the herring over to the abdomen, remove the fins and tail, pry off the skin with a knife first from one part of the fillet, and begin to remove slowly with one hand, while the second you need to press the second side of the fillet so that the fish does not fidget. Repeat the same with the remaining piece.
Peeled herring can be cut into portions and served with pickled onions, used in canapes or salads.
Method number 2 To cut herring, put the fish on a cutting board covered with napkins or cling film. Make an incision along the abdomen, cut not in the center, but slightly higher. Then, on one side, cut the herring near the head without cutting to the end, so as not to cut the insides from it, so we will have full access to the abdomen of the fish.
Then remove the milk or caviar, if any. Lift the insides to the head, we will later cut and discard everything together, but before that we cut the lower part of the abdomen where the fins, fat and a lot of bones from the ribs are located. Begin to cut off from the side of the head, stepping back a bit and removing up to 2 cm somewhere unnecessary. Then cut everything together with the head and all the excess that we have separated.
Wash the fish and wipe it well with napkins on the outside and inside, removing the black film, this film is slightly bitter. The fish has a large fin on the back, it needs to be removed by making incisions on both sides and just pulled, it is removed along with the bone that are under it. In the same way, remove the smaller fin that is closer to the tail.
Now you need to remove all the skin. Pry it with a knife starting from the abdomen and from the head, gently begin to separate from the fillet so that it does not tear, move to the tail.
It remains to separate the herring from the bones. Grasp the tail with both hands and pull from different sides, the fish should begin to split into two sides, if this does not happen, make shallow cuts on both sides in a line that is in the middle, just at the junction of the ribs with the ridge.
You should get two clean belly fillets and meat on the ridge. The ribs should remain on the ridge. To separate the rest of the fillet, make an incision along the top of the ridge and use your fingers to separate the meat from the bone, climbing into this section, as if pushing the meat from the bones, moving from head to tail. Check for seeds, remove them with tweezers.
As a result, you will get four beautiful fillets, the upper part can be used for snacks, and the lower for salads.
