Most often, mackerel falls into our hands frozen. This is for the best: there is hope that all helminths and other parasites have frozen out. And this fact is especially important when we are going to pickle mackerel in brine, in a simple home way, pouring pieces of fish with salt. That is, when we are not going to heat the fish, fry or boil it. Salting of mackerel is beyond the power of even an inexperienced housewife, a successful ambassador of mackerel at home will be, if you strictly follow the recipe. Lack of salt, like salting, will ruin the dish.
Before salting a mackerel at home, it is necessary to defrost it. If, nevertheless, you are lucky and you have acquired fresh or only chilled fish, then further steps are the same.
We carefully clean the mackerel, gutting it, pull out the gills, remove the milk and caviar. We wash the fish, pour salt into each abdomen: large, clean, without any additives and impurities. And in no case iodized. For one kilogram of fish, 100 to 120 grams of salt is enough. At the bottom of a deep and wide enameled bowl, pour a little salt, lay the carcasses with the belly up, put oppression on top. Under oppression, a brine is formed (a mixture of juice and salt), it is called "brine". Periodically, it must be drained. The fish will salt well and will be ready to serve in a week. This method is the easiest. So harvested mackerel in ancient times. Now housewives prefer to make this fatty, tasty, inexpensive fish a real delicacy.
The first recipe for such a delicacy as salting mackerel at home is relatively simple. We remove the head, tail, and fins of the fish. Trim the hard scales from the sides of the carcass and remove the thin skin. Cut it on the abdomen, clean all the insides and rinse. Separate the flesh from the ridge and pull out the costal bones. We cut each half of the carcass into 4 - 5 pieces. These pieces are laid in layers in a container for a refrigerator or a bowl. Sprinkle each layer with a mixture of salt and granulated sugar in a ratio of 3: 1, put a bay leaf and a few peas of allspice. Bay leaves can be ground in a coffee grinder, this fragrant powder gives its aroma much better than the leaves. We close the dishes with salted fish and put in the refrigerator. After 2 days, you can eat it.
The preparation of raw fish before salting the mackerel at home, according to the second recipe, is the same as in the previous one. But we do not cut the carcass fillet into pieces, but carefully lay its halves in layers. In addition to salt, each of them is coated with a prepared spicy mixture. It includes chopped dry herbs (basil, oregano, thyme, marjoram) and dry chopped hot pepper. This appetizer is ready in 3 days. Before serving, the spicy fillet does not need to be cleaned of seasonings, they give the dish a special piquancy.
If you want to cook an appetizer so that it can be eaten the next day, then you will need a recipe on how to pickle mackerel at home quickly. The peculiarity of this recipe is that cooked, sliced fillets are placed immediately in the dishes, in which the fish will be served on the table. Layering the layers of fish fillet with onion rings and pour the marinade. For him, mix salt, pepper, a few pieces of cloves, bay leaf with vinegar and vegetable oil. The fish in the marinade is kept at room temperature for several (6 - 8) hours. Then it must be stored in the refrigerator.
The mackerel ambassador in this marinade with the addition of vinegar makes it rather pickled. Vinegar is harmful to many, in which case you can use citric acid.
Salted mackerel can be served as an appetizer in fish platter, with hot baked potatoes. Canapes with fish slices and lemon slices are beautiful and delicious.