Habitat
Saury lives in the Pacific Ocean and the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. To spawn in the warm season, it swims to the shores of Japan and Sakhalin, and returns to warm waters with cold weather. Adults grow up to 40 centimeters in length. The fish is covered with small, silvery scales, has an elongated body with a dark greenish back. It differs from other fish in its long jaws, large mouth, and large number of small fins.
Useful qualities
Saira contains a lot of useful substances in its composition. Some of the most famous are unsaturated fatty acids Omega-3 and Omega-6, natural antioxidants. They have a positive effect on the condition of our blood vessels, the functioning of the cardiovascular system, normalization of metabolic processes, improvement of blood quality, and cell regeneration processes.
Saury is also rich in vitamins PP, D, A, B, minerals, proteins, and phosphorus. Nutritionists recommend including saury meat in healthy or dietary meals. Baked in the oven, boiled fish has low energy value and calorie content, and does not contain carbohydrates at all.
Fish with pickled onions
This is a very tempting way in which saury can be cooked in the oven. The recipe suggests cutting it into fillets, so that you get not two halves, but a whole, but flattened fish. The carcass is placed in a bowl, poured with lemon juice and mayonnaise, sprinkled with seasonings and onion half rings and left for half an hour to marinate. The saury prepared in this way is laid out on foil, pickled onions are placed on one side, covered with the other half, packed in foil and put in the oven for an hour at 180 degrees.
How to choose?
In order for saury dishes to be tasty and healthy, you need to pay attention to several characteristics when choosing fish:
- the smell should remain fresh, without foreign impurities, since if stored improperly, the taste may be lost;
- Freshness is indicated by bright red gills and the absence of mucus on the fish;
- the fish itself, without defrosting or freezing, has a green or blue tint;
- if the fish is sold cooked or in a can, then look at the integrity of the packaging and expiration dates.
After purchasing the saury, it is better to immediately remove the entrails and rinse thoroughly.
Preserving saury at home
You can also preserve saury at home if you do not trust the manufacturers and are afraid of the presence of worms in the jar. This is very easy to do with the help of our recommendations. Don't forget to stock up on the required ingredients and set aside some free time. You will also need a container in which you will seal the fish.
Required ingredients:
- vegetable oil (refined);
- peeled saury;
- salt;
- black peppercorns.
Let's start the conservation process. First of all, clean the saury from the insides and wash it thoroughly. Also get rid of the head and fins of the fish, and then make sure to clean the black film inside the saury. Having completely cleaned and washed the saury, cut it into large pieces about three centimeters wide.
Prepared jars must be clean, sterile and dry. Start laying the fish in them, sprinkling each layer with salt and pepper. After this, fill the saury with oil so that it does not fill the entire container completely, but only reaches the shoulders of the can. Cover with metal lids, but do not seal, and place in a cold oven. Gradually heat it up to one hundred and eighty degrees, and when the oven is heated to the desired temperature, leave the saury to warm up for half an hour.
After thirty minutes, reduce the temperature to one hundred degrees, open the oven door slightly and leave the canned food for six hours. Then the canned saury needs to be cooled and rolled up with lids, stored in a cool place.
How to cook?
There are many recipes for making saury. Let's look at some of them.
We always enjoy eating fresh fish soup or aromatic fish soup. These dishes are prepared quickly and easily.
- We remove the gutted two saury from the fins, tails and heads, leave them for a rich broth, cut the carcasses into medium pieces and set them aside.
- Fill the heads and fins in the pan with water slightly above the contents. During the boiling process, skim off the foam.
- After this, add one whole carrot, an unpeeled onion, two tablespoons of seasonings and chopped roots (parsnips, celery, parsley), a few black peppercorns, two bay leaves, and salt the broth to taste. In this state, cook for at least one hour over low heat.
- Take the prepared vegetables from the prepared broth and strain the broth.
- After cutting the carrots into strips, return them back to the soup, add portioned pieces of saury, cut into cubes, four potatoes and cook for another 15 minutes over low heat.
- It’s good to add chopped greens to the plate. Delicious soup is ready!
Everyone’s gastronomic preferences are different, but classic, whole-fried saury remains one of our favorite dishes.
- We blot the washed and cleaned fish from moisture, salt to taste and season with ground pepper.
- After letting it marinate a little, roll it in flour and place it in a frying pan with hot oil.
- Quickly fry the saury on both sides.
- Serve the finished fish with a salad or vegetable side dish, sprinkle with lemon juice.
The recipe for making fresh frozen saury perfectly preserves its beneficial components and taste.
- Carefully defrost the fish carcasses, cut them up, rinse them under cold water and dry them with paper towels.
- A hearty and tasty recipe suggests marinating saury in your favorite spices and seasonings for fish dishes for two hours, which will give the fish an unsurpassed aroma.
- Place whole fish, back up, in a baking container (preferably with sides) and add a little water. During cooking in this form, they will acquire a crust, their bellies will melt and give up their fat.
- Bake the dish in a very hot oven for 15 minutes.
Soup with saury and millet
This version of the soup turns out to be very interesting. It reveals the taste of millet from a new perspective and brightens up its bitterness. For this recipe you need to take the following products:
How to cook soup with canned saury? To begin with, pour water, add a little salt, and place it on the stove. Grate the carrots on a coarse grater, cut the onion into medium cubes. Fry both ingredients in vegetable oil. The vegetables should eventually become soft and slightly browned. You can also add a little butter for a more subtle taste. Potatoes are peeled, washed and cut into cubes. Place in boiling water. The millet is washed several times and also placed in a pan. Then add vegetables and spices.
When the potatoes are ready, add pieces of fish and a small amount of oil from a jar. Cook for another five minutes. Sprinkle with fresh herbs and let the soup brew.
Step-by-step cooking recipe
Everything is very simple to prepare, but in the end, it turns out to be a very tasty fish. Previously, we remember saury only as canned food, but for several years now frozen saury has been available for sale in our country, we have prepared it in different ways, but we like this method better everything. We clean the saury from scales and entrails, separate the head, lightly rub it with vegetable oil only on the top, and thoroughly rub it with seasoning, but also inside the belly, sprinkle it with lemon juice, leave it for about an hour, then place it on the grill pan grate, and cook for about 30 minutes. That's all, bon appetit.
If you don’t have a grill pan, then in foil in the oven.
Saira with lemon and vegetables
Perhaps the most delicious way to prepare fish is to bake it. If you have fresh saury, recipes for cooking it in the oven will delight you with their variety. For example, this: the rings of one onion are sautéed until golden brown, and the slices of two tomatoes are fried separately. Cleaned saury carcasses are laid out on a baking sheet lined with foil, sprinkled with lemon juice and rubbed with salt and spices suitable for the fish. On top of the saury are mixed fried onions, tomatoes, lemon slices and dill sprigs (you can chop them if desired). The foil is wrapped, the sheet is placed in the oven for a quarter of an hour (it heats up to 220), then the “package” is opened, and the fish is returned to the oven for another 10 minutes. This dish is eaten both hot and cold.
How to cook saury. Recipe from Petr de Cril'on. Baked saury in the oven
how to cook saury at home. Since you have always consumed saury in cans. And we always thought about how to make a sandwich, salad or fish soup from such saury. Nowadays, fresh-frozen saury has appeared in stores, which in terms of taste is radically different from canned saury. Therefore, we invite you to learn how to prepare fresh saury at home.
We offer you one of the recipes from Petr de Cril'on on how to prepare saury, since in this matter we have some experience in catching this fish in the area of Shikatan Island, the South Kuril Ridge, and, of course, we prepared saury “for ourselves” , both on a seiner and at home, radically different in taste from that produced at fish factories in the Far East. Although for many of us, the taste of canned saury is the classic taste of saury, since for the most part no one has ever cooked fresh saury at home, much less salted and smoked it at home. In the latter state it is most tasty and pleasant.
Saury is a very nutritious and tasty fish, but the fats contained in saury, much like those of herring, oxidize very quickly in air. The taste of this fish deteriorates quite significantly after the oxidation of fats. Therefore, when storing, defrosting and cooking, it is necessary to take this factor into account and use various culinary tricks to prepare tasty saury at home.
Use in cooking
Canned saury is used quite often in cooking, as it is a suitable ingredient for preparing a huge number of different dishes. There are many recipes that include these canned foods.
- Most often, saury is used to prepare fish soup or fish soup. This fish is not too fatty, making first courses based on it light and appetizing. They can easily be given to children and nursing mothers, and also used as dietary food.
- Canned saury is also often used to prepare various salads. At the same time, vegetables (fresh cucumbers, potatoes, tomatoes), herbs, as well as other products such as eggs, cheese, apples and mushrooms are added to the dish. The most popular quick salad using canned food is Mimosa.
- Canned saury cutlets are another culinary masterpiece that is very easy to prepare. At the same time, canned pink salmon and mackerel are often used along with saury, and rice is also added.
- Snacks made from canned fish include all kinds of sandwiches, canapés, tartlets and pita rolls. To fill the appetizers, saury pate is usually prepared, but it can also be crushed with boiled eggs and mayonnaise.
- Layer pie and pancakes are dishes that can also be filled with canned saury. Not everyone may like such food, but many housewives note that the baked goods turn out very tasty and aromatic.
- Main courses can also be prepared using canned saury. It goes especially well with pasta or spaghetti, buckwheat or potatoes.
- Delicious mincemeat is often prepared from such canned food.
As you can see, canned saury can be used quite successfully in cooking. The main thing in cooking is the cook’s imagination. Try experimenting with recipes yourself to prepare a new delicious dish with canned saury, and then treat your friends and relatives to it.
How to cook saury at home, recipe
- Since many of us have only seen saury in a can, something like the one shown in the photo, we can offer you a little instructions on how to choose fresh frozen saury in the fish department of the store. Saira should look something like the “Snow Queen”: a pleasant silver color, covered with a thin layer of ice glaze. Saira should not have yellow streaks, rusty spots or mechanical damage, should not have the smell of a rusty herring, and should have the color of frozen blood streaks, dark red, not yellow. The skin of saury is very thin and delicate, so we must be careful when transporting and storing it.