Few people know the secret of how to clean a pike. First, there are the fishermen themselves. For them, this is a familiar and familiar business. Secondly, these are their wives. They willy-nilly have to master this difficult art.

Main steps of the process

In order to cook any dish from fish, it must first be cleaned. This rather tedious process consists of several steps:

1. it is necessary to rinse well under running water to clean it of debris and unpleasant mucus on the surface.
2. Scale removal. This is the most time consuming part of the process. The carcass must be laid out on the table so that its tail is on the right, and the head, respectively, on the left. Then, with a sharp knife, slowly scrape off the small scales in the direction from head to tail.
3. Using the same knife, separate the tail and dorsal fin.
4. Rip open the belly of the fish, making a neat incision in the head area and gradually moving towards the tail.
5. Having opened the belly, take out all the insides and remove the thin film located along the spinal bone.
6. Cut off the head and wash the carcass clean again.

To finally figure out how to clean a pike, you need to learn the intricacies of each of these steps.

Important details

In the complex process of preparing fresh fish for further cooking, there are several important points that need to be understood in order to have a complete understanding of how to clean pike:

1) First you need to remember that for such work you will need a large amount of water and a very sharp knife. As you know, the scales of the pike are very small and in the course of cleaning it needs to be washed off periodically. In addition, the fish itself is covered with a layer of natural mucus. It's not easy to remove it. This will require a lot of water.

2) It is necessary to scrape off the scales from the surface with smooth, confident movements, holding the knife slightly at an angle to the fish. This will greatly facilitate the work and prevent the scattering of small scales throughout the kitchen.

3) Cut the belly very carefully. Do not stick the knife deep into the body of the fish. So you can damage the gallbladder and spoil the meat. A smooth cut from the head to the anus will be enough.

4) When removing the insides, a thin transparent film can be seen near the spine, under which there are small bloody clots. All this must be removed.

The scales of the fish perform a protective function, but are completely unsuitable for food. However, it is worth noting that it contains many rather rare and at the same time useful substances. Therefore, if the pike is used exclusively for cooking, then it may not be cleaned. From this follow two ways of how to properly clean a pike:

1) The scales along with the insides are removed before cooking.

2) The scales, together with the skin and bones, are separated from the meat after cooking. This option is used if they are going to cook, for example, fish cakes.

There is another golden rule. You need to remove the scales only along with the extraction of the insides. It is not necessary to separate these two processes, since they are fundamentally interconnected with each other. Sometimes fish with rather dense scales come across. In this case, the fish should be slightly steamed by lowering it briefly into a container of boiling water. And, of course, every housewife knows how to properly clean a pike so as not to cover the entire room with scales. In addition to a sharp knife, you will also need a regular plastic bag. The cleaning process will take place inside it, which will prevent the possibility of waste scattering.

If you only need meat

Before proceeding with the processing of fresh fish, it is better to decide in advance what will be prepared from it. For example, I want to make pike cutlets. In this case, only meat will be needed from the whole carcass, and you can choose from two already known options. Most often, housewives go the usual way and process fresh fish. In this case, you need to figure out how to clean the pike for cutlets. Here the usual process is repeated step by step:

1. Rinse the fish under running water.
2. Clean the scales with a knife or a special scraper. To avoid scattering debris, the pike can be placed in the sink, after closing the drain hole and collecting some water into it.
3. Following the scales, remove the insides, and then cut off the tail and all fins.
4. Now you need to carefully remove the fillet from this gutted fish with a special knife. And the small bones that remain in the pulp can be removed with ordinary tweezers.

Now it becomes clear how to clean the pike for cutlets. It remains only to grind the fish pulp in a meat grinder. The skin, in principle, can not be removed. It will be completely invisible in the general mass.

Camp cleaning

Processing fish at home is, of course, convenient. But what about those who decide to do it in nature? What fisherman doesn't want to boil an ear or fry a couple of pike from a fresh catch? To do this, it needs to be prepared. And how to clean a pike from scales right on the street without the usual conditions and tools? But fishermen are people accustomed to everything. Any of them can do it in literally 2 minutes. For such purposes, each of them always has a small device in their travel bag. It can be easily made by hand. To do this, you need a piece of board no more than 20 centimeters long and a pair of metal corks from glass bottles. The board needs to be cut along to get a blank for the handle. In order not to injure your hands during work, it is better to process and grind it with sandpaper. On the one hand, one after the other, using ordinary nails, fix the corks. Such a simple device is easy to make at home in advance. But at the right time with it, you can clean even the smallest fish.

Simple and fast

Butchering pike is a lengthy and rather messy process. But experts have come up with a way to clean the pike quickly and with virtually no debris. For this you will need: a cutting board, a knife and a fillet fork. Now you need to do the following correctly:

1. Put the washed fish on the board.
2. Cut out the middle fin, and make a cut behind the front fin towards the head.
3. Having reached the ridge, turn the knife around and continue cutting along the ridge up to the tail. It turns out exactly half the carcass. Then turn the other half over and do the same with it.
4. Separate the ribs from each half, carefully cutting them with a fillet knife. Fish at this time can be held with a fork.
5. Now, alternately, for each half, separate the skin along with the scales. To do this, a piece of fish must be placed on the board with the skin down and carefully cut with a knife, slowly moving it along the table.

The result is two pieces of pike meat pulp. And the fish is cleaned without dirt and without scales.

If the fish needs to be fried

To fry fish, it must first be prepared. No one will put a whole carcass in the pan, with scales and entrails. In any case, the fish must first be brought into a semi-finished state. This work can be done in different ways. Here you need to know how to clean the pike for frying, depending on the method of its preparation. For example, to make fish in batter, you need a fillet. You can get it using the method described above, and do not tire yourself with cleaning the scales. This will greatly reduce the time that must be spent on cutting the pike. The work is done quickly and, most importantly, cleanly. If you want to fry the fish in the usual way, you will first have to take care of the scales, remove everything unnecessary, divide the cooked carcass into portioned pieces, and then proceed to the main process. In any case, the choice is always up to the hostess, because it depends on her how well and tasty the dish will be cooked.