How to deliciously salt sockeye salmon at home: recipes for salting red fish with photos

How to salt sockeye salmon tasty and quickly: recipes for lightly salted red fish

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Among all salmon, sockeye salmon is considered the most delicious - after salting or smoking it remains very juicy. It's all about the thinnest layers of fat, which, when processed, give the meat of this type of red fish a special, delicate taste.

I love lightly salted fish, but manufacturers often use so many chemical additives as preservatives that I no longer want to buy it. Moreover, there is no desire to feed such a “delicacy” to your loved ones. Therefore, I have been preparing sockeye salmon preparations myself at home for a long time and will post several recipes here.

Selection and preparation process

Naturally, the best product remains freshly caught fish. Only residents of the Pacific Coast can afford such luxury; the rest of the population has to be content with freshly frozen semi-finished products. In the huge refrigerators of specialized stores, you should pay attention to whole sockeye salmon carcasses without heads, frozen by shock. Be sure to carefully examine the preparations for the future delicacy before purchasing - there should be no traces of primary processing or suspicious stains on them.

At home, leave the fish to defrost in the refrigerator. Do not rush into thawing - any acceleration of this process can ruin an expensive product.

After the carcass has completely thawed, drain the water that appears in the bowl with the sockeye salmon - it is strictly forbidden to use it for cooking broth, as some sites recommend.

Next, rinse the sockeye salmon thoroughly in running water and cut off the fins and tail with culinary scissors. Using a sharp knife, carefully open the belly and remove all the insides with your hands. Carefully examine the entire mass that ends up in the plate - the slightest signs of worms indicate that the product needs to be thrown away. In order to save money, I do not recommend using an infected product - the larvae of all marine parasites have too high a degree of survivability. But the consequences of infection are impossible to predict.

If upon inspection everything turns out to be perfect, carefully separate the caviar or milt. They can also be salted. Scrape the black film from the walls of the belly with the back of a knife so that the finished delicacy does not become bitter.

Rinse the prepared carcass and entrails in plenty of water and place in a colander or thick sieve - we don’t need excess water. As soon as the water stops dripping, wipe the workpiece with a linen napkin. Our further actions directly depend on how you want to salt sockeye salmon.

How to salt sockeye salmon tasty and quickly: recipes for lightly salted red fish

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Sockeye salmon fillet in brine

My favorite way to prepare this delicious fish. You need to cut the pre-cleaned carcass along the ridge very carefully and pull out the spine along with the large bones. Next, we spread both halves on the table and carefully examine each piece, pulling out the remaining bones with tweezers.

What we need:

1 kg sockeye salmon fillet;
5-9 tbsp. l. table salt;
1 liter of purified drinking water;
200 ml refined oil.

How to prepare:

Dry the fillet with skin lightly with a kitchen napkin.
Place a saucepan of water on the fire and add salt to the boiling water. As soon as the crystals dissolve, remove the brine from the stove and wait until it cools. Strain through several layers of gauze - rock salt contains a lot of insoluble particles, which will then crunch unpleasantly on your teeth.
Place whole pieces of fillet in lukewarm salted water for 30 minutes. Don’t be afraid to overdo it with salt – this fatty fish will never take too much.
Now we take the salted sockeye salmon out of the liquid and lightly blot it with a paper towel.
Cut the delicacy into portions and place in a glass or plastic container with a lid.
Fill the treat with oil. If you wish, you can add spices to the red fish at this stage. I use ground allspice and crushed bay leaf.
Close the jar of fish tightly with a lid and place it in the refrigerator for 10 hours.

You can use this preparation in any way you like – from breakfast sandwiches to complex salads.

Secrets and rules for salting red fish at home

When salted, pink salmon and chum salmon turn out to be a little dry, so to make the fillet soft, add olive oil to the salt.
Do not use metal utensils for salting, otherwise the fish will have an iron taste.
Some housewives, after sprinkling the fish with salt and spices, “swaddle” the fish with a towel to create a spicy dry-salted fish.
Don't be afraid to overdo it with salt - the fish will absorb just enough of it.
When salting fish, you can add dill and garlic - they will give it a fragrant and spicy taste.
Serve sliced red fish with lemon, herbs, olives, fresh vegetables and white wine.

Having learned correctly, you will refuse fish in factory packaging, even if it is imported. From salted red fish you can prepare salads, sushi, rolls, sandwiches, snacks, stuffed pancakes and many other delicious things. Get used to sophistication and join the ranks of passionate fans of home-salted red fish!

Sockeye salmon is a red fish belonging to the Pacific salmon family. It is often confused with chum salmon due to its similar shape and size. But sockeye salmon meat is much tastier, has a bright red color and low calorie content if cooked correctly.

Fish is a delicious dietary product. Pediatricians recommend including sockeye salmon cooked in a double boiler or slow cooker in the diet of babies. The uniqueness lies in its nutritional value - with a relatively low calorie content (only 157 kcal per 100 grams), it contains a lot of proteins and fats.

Nutritional value of baked sockeye salmon per 100 grams

calorie content 153 kcal;
proteins 19 g;
fats 8 g;
carbohydrates 0.2 g.

When cooking, fish is not capricious, and there are a great variety of cooking methods: sockeye salmon makes delicious balyk, wonderful fish soup, it is salted, smoked, fried, made into cutlets, baked.

Dry pickling

A quick and low-budget option for preparing a healthy delicacy. You should not be afraid that as a result of such processing the sockeye salmon will become dry - the special structure of the tissues in the muscles of the red fish will not allow seasonings and spices to spoil the juicy preparation.

What we need:

1 kg of fish without bones;
4 tbsp. l. table salt;
2 tbsp. l. granulated sugar;
1 tsp. spices to taste.

How to prepare:

Carefully remove the skin from the prepared fillet.
Sprinkle the mixture of dry seasonings and spices evenly over the surface of the fillet on both sides.
Wrap the sockeye salmon in parchment and place it in the refrigerator for a day. Be sure to place a deep plate under the package - during the salting process, the fish will give juice.

Before using, I lightly wipe lightly salted fish with a paper towel so that undissolved grains do not get into the sandwich or salad.

Dry, quick way to prepare lightly salted sockeye salmon

Cut the sockeye salmon into manageable pieces.

Mix salt and sugar in the following ratio:

For 3 tbsp. salt – 1 tbsp. l. Sahara.

Roll each piece of fillet in a mixture of salt and sugar and place in a bowl. It is highly undesirable to use metal containers for salting, and if you don’t have anything like that on hand, place a plastic bag inside the pan and put the fish directly into it.

Send the remaining salt and sugar there, and don’t be afraid that the fish will be over-salted. The degree of salting depends only on the salting time.

Place an inverted plate on top of the fish and place pressure on top. Usually this function is performed by a three-liter bottle of water. Leave the fish to salt for 4 hours at room temperature.

This time is enough for the sockeye salmon to become lightly salted. Shake the salt off the fish and rinse the fillet pieces under running water. Do not soak or soak, just rinse with water.

Dry the sockeye salmon fillet with a towel, wrap the fish pieces in cling film and place them in the refrigerator for at least an hour.

Now, lightly salted sockeye salmon is really ready.

Watch the video on how to cook lightly salted sockeye salmon:

How to properly salt sockeye salmon

Sockeye salmon is considered the most delicious fish of all salmon species. Its meat contains a certain percentage of fat, which allows it to be salted, smoked and cooked in other delicious dishes. This cannot be said about chum salmon or pink salmon, which are not so juicy.

Recommendations for cooking sockeye salmon

Since sockeye salmon meat is fatty, it takes a little longer to cook. You can actually try the finished product within a couple of hours, but the meat will not be completely cooked. To get lightly salted meat, you will have to wait at least a day, remove the meat from the container and transfer it to a bag, after which it must be left to cook for another day.
To prevent parasites from remaining in the fish, it should be frozen at a very low temperature (-18 degrees) and kept for 21 days.
If you bought fresh frozen fish, then re-freezing it does not make sense.

How to choose the right fish

It is better to buy fresh, just caught fish. As a last resort, fish from the first frost will do.

The fish must be a whole carcass, without any traces of cleaning. Before cooking, the fish is cut by hand.

In the salting process, you can use caviar and milk, which also have an excellent taste.

How to salt sockeye salmon?

There are many ways to salt fish, but they all have one feature - the meat will take exactly as much salt as it needs. This means that the product cannot be over-salted. The following ingredients will be needed:

The sockeye salmon fillet itself is about 1 kilogram.
A tablespoon of sugar and salt.
Any other spices for fish.

Pour all the dry ingredients into a mortar and grind them thoroughly. Place sockeye salmon fillet in a salting container, sprinkle it with a mixture of spices, then put another piece and also salt it. After two days, the red fish delicacy is ready to eat.

Fried sockeye salmon

You can simply fry the steak on both sides and season it with a spicy sauce, or you can prepare a small culinary masterpiece. For these purposes, it is necessary to prepare an unusual mixture of herbs and spices, as well as other ingredients:

The sockeye salmon fillet itself (you can use steaks) - 6-7 pieces.
A teaspoon of cayenne pepper.
A tablespoon of dry thyme.
A tablespoon of freshly ground black pepper.
The same amount of oregano.
The same amount of paprika.
Half a teaspoon of lemon zest.
Vegetable oil for frying.
Sea salt or regular salt.

This dish is perfect for a special dinner, when you want not only to feed everyone gathered at the table, but to surprise them with an unusual taste and original presentation.

How to cook deliciously?

There are many ways to prepare this delicious meat. So, fish is often prepared in the same way as salmon. Sockeye salmon is also good in the oven. It also turns out great in a slow cooker. However, there are dishes that require the use of this particular meat.

True connoisseurs assure that once you have tasted sockeye salmon meat, it is simply impossible to forget its taste. Moreover, even chum salmon is in many ways inferior to oven-cooked sockeye salmon. It makes excellent balyks. How good is salted sockeye salmon! It can be eaten just like that, or can be used as the main ingredient for salads and a wide variety of cold appetizers.

From words to practice, it's time to familiarize yourself with some traditional recipes for cooking fish.

Sockeye salmon: recipes

Fillet or steaks can be fried, stewed or salted. Sockeye salmon is great for preparing a wide variety of cold appetizers and salads. Fillet fried in batter with the addition of a spicy sauce will be an excellent option for a celebration or holiday. Sockeye salmon soup, which can be prepared for Sunday lunch, is no less tasty.

You will need the following ingredients:

Sockeye salmon carcass weighing 1-1.5 kg.
Carrots and celery - 35 grams each.
2 cloves of garlic.
2 potatoes.
Vegetable oil.
2 medium sized onions.
Cherry tomatoes - 2 pieces.
Spices and seasonings.

First of all, you need to cut the fish: remove and discard the entrails, separate the head and bones, wash and dry the fillets. Make a broth from the heads and fish bones with the addition of bay leaf and black pepper. While the broth is being prepared, you need to chop the potato tubers and one onion, chop the carrots and celery. Melt butter in a frying pan and fry vegetables in it. Dip the second onion whole into the broth along with the chopped potatoes. Cut the fish fillet into small pieces along with the tomatoes, fry along with the rest of the vegetables, then add to the pan with the soup. Add spices and spices, cover with a lid and let the dish brew.

As you can see, you can cook sockeye salmon in different ways. The main thing is to find your own recipe, which will become the signature dish.

How to salt a whole carcass of sockeye salmon?

Salted fish has a number of undeniable advantages:

Firstly, home-cooked fish does not contain as many preservatives and additives as a store-bought product.
Secondly, in this case you can get exactly the taste you want.
Thirdly, salted red fish is much cheaper.

Now you just need to familiarize yourself with a rather unusual method of salting a sockeye salmon carcass. To do this, it is not at all necessary to buy fillets or steaks - you can salt the entire carcass directly. First of all, you need to cut it up, freeing it from the insides and head, then rinse thoroughly and dry with a paper towel. It is recommended to salt a whole sockeye salmon carcass in the classic way, using the following ingredients:

2 tablespoons salt;
the same amount of sugar;
a large bunch of fresh dill;
one medium sized lemon.

Greens and lemon need to be washed. Dry the dill on a towel and cut the lemon into thin rings. Take a third of the greens and line the bottom of the container in which the fish will be salted. Rub the sockeye salmon carcass with a mixture of salt and sugar (you can add chopped bay leaf and a few black peppercorns). Place chopped lemon and the second part of dill inside the fish, and cover the sockeye salmon on top with a so-called blanket of dill sprigs. The fish should be covered with a lid and pressure placed on top, then put in a cool place for 24 hours.

How to properly salt sockeye salmon

In terms of its taste, sockeye salmon is considered one of the most delicious when comparing the entire salmon family. The meat is quite fatty, which allows it not only to be salted, but also to be smoked. Chum salmon and pink salmon are not entirely suitable for this, as they turn out dry.

General cooking tips

Considering the fact that this type of salmon is quite fatty, it will take some time to salt it. The sample can be taken after a few hours, but it will not yet be a finished product. To get lightly salted, you need to wait about a day, then transfer the fish from the salting container into a bag and leave it for a day.
Pickling such a product fresh is dangerous - it may contain parasites. It is recommended to freeze it for 21 days at a very low temperature (-18 degrees Celsius).
When purchasing frozen fish, re-freezing is not required.

How to choose the right fish

You need to buy exclusively fresh fish (live, chilled, and ideally first frozen).
It doesn't have to be cleaned. You should buy a whole one. You need to cut it up yourself before salting.
Caviar and even milk can also be used for salting; their taste is simply amazing.

Stewed in sour cream

Many people don’t really like red fish just because it has a characteristic bitterness. However, there are little secrets that will help fix this. Sour cream sauce and vegetables are what you need to prepare a small culinary masterpiece. You need to prepare the following ingredients:

Fish fillet - 1 kilogram.
Olive oil for frying (can be replaced with vegetable oil).
A tablespoon of tomato paste or sauce.
Three medium sized onions.
Two small carrots.
Medium fat sour cream - 500 grams.
Bay leaf, pepper and salt, as well as any other spices desired.

And now it’s worth familiarizing yourself with the most detailed recipe for preparing an unusual dish.