Since ancient times, jellied fish has been an indispensable attribute of a noble, merchant, and even imperial holiday table. In the XIX century, the secrets of cooking this dish were included in the cult collection of recipes by Elena Molokhovets “A gift for young housewives.” About how to cook aspic from zander with gelatin, without it, with all kinds of sauces and additives - in the proposed material.
Material Content:
Cooking fish for cooking
Cooking of any dish begins not in the kitchen, but in the store. Much depends on the quality of the products, and the choice of zander must be given special attention.
The carcass must meet the following requirements:
- whole, large, with a head;
- the smell of fish is very faint;
- no smell of tina, fat or ammonia;
- moist shiny skin;
- elastic carcass structure;
- red gills;
- convex transparent eyes.
Preparing the carcass for cooking consists of gutting, plastaging and filleting. Sometimes fish is poured, sliced in portions with vertebral bone and ribs, but this is a violation of technology. In an ideal filler, there should be no bones.
Step-by-step carcass preparation process:
- We clear a zander from scales.
- We cut the abdomen from the anus to the head and take out the offal.
- We remove the gills.
- Cut the fins.
- Separate the head.
- Holding the carcass with your left hand on top, cut the fish along the ridge to get two layers - with skin and ribs and with skin, ribs, vertebral bone and tail.
- The first layer is laid with the skin down and, leading the knife parallel to the surface of the table, carefully cut the ribs.
- Similarly, from the second layer, we cut off the ribs and spinal bone. Having cut the skin, we separate the bones together with the caudal fin.
- The remaining small bones are removed with tweezers.
At the output we get two fillets with skin and fish waste - head, fins, bones and tail. Waste will go on preparation of a lanspeak - broth for filling. Some people prefer to use clean skinless fillet for aspic. In this case, the cut skin is also sent to the lanspeak.
Can I use frozen fish?
Fresh fish is certainly tastier than a thawed species. But it is not always possible to purchase fresh or chilled zander. Sometimes unscrupulous sellers often strive to give defrosted fish as chilled. Sometimes it’s advisable to take in a frozen carcass.
Frozen pike perch is sold with peeled, decapitated and gutted carcass without fins. Therefore, it makes sense to buy a fish soup set for him, so that there are enough products to prepare the broth.
Jellied pike perch with gelatin - a classic recipe
The traditional aspic fillet of zander involves the use of gelatin. It allows you to get dense jelly even from a weak, non-concentrated broth.
To correctly calculate the amount of broth for filling fish, you need to remember a simple formula: for every kilogram of fish 1 liter of water is needed.
In the future, 1 gram of broth will require 50 grams of gelatin.
To obtain a successful lanspeak, it is important to dilute gelatin correctly:
- soak only in cold water;
- after swelling, slowly warm the mixture with continuous stirring;
- Do not boil the mixture.
So, to prepare a classic jellied zander from a carcass weighing 1 kg, we take the following ingredients:
| Ingredient | amount |
|---|---|
| Water | 1 liter |
| Pre-diluted Gelatin | 50 grams |
| Salt | taste |
| Spices: allspice, bay leaf | arbitrarily |
| Roots: celery, parsnip, parsley, carrots | 1 small root crop |
| Onion | 1 head |
It is not necessary to search for all the indicated roots. You can take what is at hand.
The cooking process of lanspeak step by step:
- put into the pan prepared during the cutting fish waste, there
- put the roots and onion;
- pour cold water and put on the stove;
- after boiling, remove the foam with a slotted spoon and reduce the heat;
- cook for 40 minutes;
- add salt and spices and cook another 10 minutes;
- remove from heat, filter the broth into another container;
- gently introduce dissolved gelatin, mix, warm and remove from the stove, not bringing to a boil.
Basically, zander jellied recipes for cooking involve cooking not only the broth, but also the fish fillet. However, fish meat may fall apart during cooking. This is especially true for clean skinless fillets. Therefore, it makes sense to slightly change the traditional technology and use the oven:
- wrap each layer of fillet in foil;
- preheat the oven to 1000С and place envelopes with fish in it;
- keep the fish in the oven for 35 minutes until it boils in its own juice.
Fillet prepared in this way preserves the elastic structure, and after cooling it will be easier to cut it into beautiful slices.
Sliced pieces are laid out on a dish, decorated with lemon, boiled quail eggs, green peas and everything that the fantasy suggests. Rings of leek, parsley leaves, capers, boiled carrots, shrimps, canned corn look good in fish fill.
Jellied pike perch without gelatin
Pike perch is a low-fat fish, and many believe that it is impossible to cook aspic without gelatin from it. But it is not so. If you use the classic recipe, the pike perch broth will not freeze. But if you know a few secrets of this fish, jellied zander will turn out without gelatin.
Collagen is responsible for the gelling of fish stock. Its content in different parts of the zander carcass is different:
| Carcass piece | Collagen content |
|---|---|
| Head | 5,6 |
| Fins and bones | 4,7 |
| Leather | 19,5 |
| Scales | 15,1 |
Thus, in order for the lanspeak from pike perch to freeze without gelatin, it must be boiled with skin and scales.
To prepare a lanspeak for filling kilogram pike perch, you need to take 2.5 liters of water and supplement the waste from cutting the carcass with fish trifle - perches, crucians, ruffs. Another option is to buy any fish soup set for pike perch.
Lanspeak without gelatin should boil until the broth volume is reduced to 1 liter. The right broth will stick together your fingers. Fillet is prepared in the same way as in the classic recipe. Prepared slices are decorated on a dish and poured with a warm lanspeak texture.
Pike perch in tomato
This dish is prepared with or without gelatin, based on conventional recipes. The trick is a "coat" of fried onions with tomato paste.
To prepare the “fur coat” 3 large onions finely chop, fry in a pan with 3 tablespoons of tomato paste. Cut the finished fillet in even slices, put it on a dish and close it with a cooled “coat” on top. Then carefully fill it with a warm lanspeak.
Jellied zander in tomato is the fastest and low-budget way to prepare this dish, since it does not require additional funds and time for decoration.
With mayonnaise
This original holiday dish takes time. For pike perch weighing 1 kg, you need to take the following ingredients:
| Ingredients | amount |
|---|---|
| Gelatin | 50 grams |
| Long loaf | 100g |
| Mayonnaise | 3 tablespoons |
| Milk | 2 tablespoons |
| Salt and spices | taste |
| Roots: parsley, carrots, celery | 1 small root crop |
| Seedless olives | 1 can |
| Onion | 2 heads |
| Garlic | 1-2 cloves |
Lanspeak is prepared as usual with gelatin. Fillet is boiled and cooled.
The further process looks like this:
- 1 onion head is cut and fried;
- the loaf is soaked in milk;
- boiled fillet, loaf, garlic and onions are placed in a blender; everything is chopped;
- the mixture is laid out on a film, twisted with a roll, pulled by a thread and boiled for 1.5 hours in salted water;
- the roll is cooled in the broth and cut into slices;
- The lanspeak is divided into two parts: mayonnaise dissolves in one, the other remains transparent.
At the bottom of the dish we pour part of the transparent lanspeak and send it to freeze in the refrigerator. Then put the slices of fish roll on it, fill them with the remaining transparent lanspeak. After hardening, put on top sliced olives on the rings and pour lanspike with mayonnaise.
Pike perch with vodka
Sometimes you can find jellied recipes, in which vodka is added.
This action makes sense if the pikeperch gives a lot of river water or mud.
Vodka is introduced after filtering the broth, before the gelatin solution. For 1 liter of broth, 30 grams of alcohol is enough. Lemon also has the ability to beat off the smell of tina. Its juice can be sprinkled with a vein before baking in the oven.
The rest of the cooking process is no different from a traditional recipe.
Pike perch in a slow cooker
Jellied pike perch can be prepared in a slow cooker using the following technology:
- fish waste is placed in a bowl with roots and filled with water;
- on the slow cooker set the mode "Soup" or "Stew" for 30 minutes;
- the fillet is processed with lemon juice, salted, cut into portions and laid out on a wire rack for cooking steam dishes;
- when the timer works, the lid opens and the grill is installed;
- the crock-pot remains at the previous mode for another 20 minutes.
Then the steam fillet is laid out on a dish, the broth is filtered, and dissolved gelatin is introduced. The Lanspeak warms up for 10 minutes in the “Heating” mode and cools down. The fish is decorated to taste, filled with broth and sent for solidification.
The hostess who knows how to cook aspic from zander in different ways will always be in a win-win situation. If all the recommendations are followed, she will not have to hear the famous phrase: "What muck is this your fish in fish!"
