How to organize your own sprat production business. Useful properties and harm of sprats Where does the fish live

Older people remember the time when sprats were a scarce product, they appeared only on festive tables. They became a symbol of prosperity for many families of that time. Now it is not difficult to buy a jar of canned food. But getting a quality product will remain a problem.

In the people sprats are called canned fish with a wonderful smell and taste. Often they are used to make sandwiches, used in salads and as an independent dish.

What is a sprat

From the scientific point of view, sprats are small fish of the family herring. It has a bluish back with a lateral light brown stripe. Its length is only 11-18 cm, and the mass 8-12 gr.

The largest are the sprats of the Baltic Sea, and the Black Sea ones are a little smaller. They feed on zooplankton. With the onset of darkness, the fish rises closer to the surface, during the day it stays on the bottom.

Spawning at the Baltic and Northern sprats occurs at the end of winter and continues until the onset of summer. In the Black Sea, spawning lasts from October to March. The optimum temperature for spawning is considered to be 6-13 ° C. On average, the female throws from 4thousandup to 19thousandeggs.

Catching latitudes begins at the moment when it is overgrown with fat, mainly in winter and autumn. Until recently, when there was a sufficient amount of sprats in the seas, canned fish was made from this fish.

Now, when the population is declining due to active fishing, other small fish may be in canned food: sprat, sprat. From this follows the conclusion that latitudes are not a type of fish, but a way of making it. Which significantly affects the taste characteristics of modern canned sprats.

100% canned food from the latitudes is made in the Baltic States on the Black Sea coast. But in the canned food of the Caspian Sea sprat often prevails.

Sprat production technology

Before cooking, the fish is sorted, very small and damaged fish are selected. Marriage is further used to prepare sprat pate. Next, the heads are removed from the sprats and sent for smoking on alder sawdust in special containers. Next, the fish are laid out in jars. The position in the tanks is influenced by the time of year when the fish was caught. The fish that has fattened up are laid belly up. Because when smoked, their back bursts. During spawning, the fish loses its fat reserve and therefore fits belly down. Next, the jars are filled with oil and sterilized.

Often, the entire harvesting stage takes place on a fishing vessel, because long-term transportation leads to high costs and damage to the fish.

Useful properties of sprats

The fish contains 17.5% protein and 32.5% fat. The main advantage of using sprats is:

• Rapid digestibility of proteins. As a result of the breakdown of proteins, amino acids are formed. This amount is enough to replace meat products in the diet at any time. Amino acids contribute to the proper functioning of the cardiovascular system, the elimination of inflamed joints, the occurrence of depression, and have a positive effect on the vital activity of the brain.
• Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids prevent the formation of vascular cholesterol.
• The composition of the latitudes contains vitamins (A, E, B, D, PP) and minerals valuable for the body. Heat treatment does not reduce the content of nutrients.
• Vitamins A and E reduce the risk of oncology. Vitamin E increases the elasticity of blood vessels, reduces the formation of blood clots
• Fish are rich in macronutrients- calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, sodium, potassium and trace elements - iron, zinc, fluorine, chromium.
• Chromium is responsible for normalizing glucose levels.
• Calcium prevents the development of osteoporosis.
• Magnesium is responsible for the normal functioning of the nervous system, improves memory and thinking.
• Phosphorus gives energy, helps in the process of assimilation of vitamins and food.
• The main source of vitamin D is fish oil.

Harmful properties of sprats

Despite the fact that sprats can be useful, this product also carries harm. The main indicators of harmfulness are:

• The presence of smoked products - carcinogens. One of them is benzapyrene. According to scientists, it can cause the formation of tumors. For this reason, regular use is not recommended. The content of benzapyrenane must exceed 0.005 mg/kg.
• High calorie product. The high content of fats in the fish itself and vegetable oil puts an additional burden on the liver. 100 g of the product contains 363 kcal. Therefore, they are not suitable for dietary nutrition.
• Because of high salt content with caution, the product should be used by people suffering from diseases of the joints. Also dangerous are purine compounds, which are rich in canned food. For this reason, it is not recommended for people suffering from gout.
• Prolonged use may cause allergic reactions.

When buying latitudes, you need to pay attention to the markings indicated on the lid of the jar. There should be a date of production, a sign of fisheries. It is better to purchase not just released, but year-old sprats. When stored in a closed container, canned food ripens, and therefore the taste changes for the better.

It is also necessary to pay attention to the address of the manufacturer. The fish that was made in the places of catch is considered to be of better quality.

Good latitudes should include fish, oil and salt, and the content of fish not less than 75%.

The duration of storage of an open jar in the refrigerator should be 3 days, out of the refrigerator - no more than three hours.

Conclusion

Chefs say that sprats go well with fried potatoes, stews and just bread. This combination can no longer be called useful because of the culture of use. And for those who use canned food correctly - it is always a unique taste and smell, decoration of any table.

Sprats have been known to many of us since Soviet times. Today, this delicacy has not lost its charm, but, on the contrary, has become even more rare. Only a few factories in Latvia have preserved the traditions of making real sprats. And we'll show you how they do it.

Three decades ago, every Soviet citizen considered it lucky to buy a few jars of sprats, so that there was something to surprise the guests during the feast. Today they are no longer an obligatory attribute of every holiday, giving way to other delicacies. Nevertheless, sprats in oil neatly packed in tins are still considered the queen of canned food in Russia. Today we will try to find out what kind of fish sprats are made from, what technology is used, and we will also visit a Latvian factory that has preserved Soviet traditions in the production of this delicacy.

Fish or canned food?

Even lovers of sprats cannot always answer a simple question: “What is a small fish or a kind of canned food?”. It turns out that it is both. Initially, Baltic sprats were placed in jars - a small fish no more than 10-12 cm long, living in the sea of ​​the same name. But over time, natural reserves were depleted and under the name "Sprats" they began to sell calibrated sprat, Caspian sprat or herring. However, even today in a tin can you can see the same fish - some factories are jealous of the technology for preparing original canned food, carefully controlling what their sprats are made of.

Sprat production technology

Everything is pretty simple. First, the fish is caught and delivered to the factory. Then the raw material is washed in fresh water and cut. Clean fish are placed in pallets and sent to be smoked for some time. After that, it is placed in jars, poured with oil and sprinkled with spices, which are mainly used as salt and pepper. At the last stage, the jars are rolled up, labeled and put into boxes.

It is interesting

It turns out that the sale of sprats produced according to the original technology is prohibited in Russia. The reason is smoking, which leads to the formation of benzopyrene in fish meat, a carcinogen that increases the risk of cancer. In our country, habitual smoking has been replaced by the addition of so-called liquid smoke, which is completely safe for the human body. Most Latvian factories still use traditional smoking. Therefore, it is not easy for Russians to try real Riga sprats, although their health only benefits from this.

Brīvais Vilnis, located in the Latvian town of Salacgrīva, is considered one of the best factories for the production of real sprats. Canned food here is still made according to traditional technology, using real smoke for smoking and manual labor in sorting and stacking the fish.

Production of sprats with checking and sorting of raw materials. Several samples are taken from each batch and transferred to the laboratory, which gives a conclusion on the suitability of the fish for human consumption. If everything is in order with the fish, some goes for sorting, and some goes to a large freezer.

For sprats, only the best fish is selected, which has an attractive appearance (not wrinkled, without visible damage) and carcass sizes in the range of 11-13 centimeters. Some believe that it is because of the careful sizing that real sprats taste so good. Sorting is done by hand, as machines often damage delicate fish carcasses and are not able to select it with such accuracy as Latvian workers do.

The next step is stringing the fish. Small sprats and large sprats are strung on the same tables. When the master gives the command: “We string a large one!”, Work is carried out with large fish. If the master says: “We string small ones!”, The workers switch to small fish. Together, they cannot be combined, since the quality of smoking may suffer because of this.

Before getting into the smokehouse, the fish settles a little. This is necessary so that moisture and smoke from the glass can freely penetrate into the meat. By the way, alder sawdust is used to create smoke. In the process of smoking, the fish passes through a special tunnel, divided into 15 zones. Each of them creates special conditions for processing carcasses. The smoker is responsible for the microclimate, who monitors each of the sites. This is almost the most responsible position at the plant, since the taste of the product largely depends on the work of the master.

At the last stage of the production of sprats, smoked fish enters the packing shop. Here, instead of the usual machines, dozens of workers also work, who carefully put the carcasses in a jar. In recent years, the plant has begun to produce sprats in containers with transparent lids. So you can immediately see that the manufacturer is not hacking, carefully controlling such, at first glance, unprincipled nuance as the quality of laying fish. Filled cans are rolled up, washed and dried with steam. After labeling, they are put into boxes and sent to the warehouse.

Sprats are the most interesting type of canned food in terms of production. In this area, traditions and their customers are honored. Let's hope that today's popular robotization and new technologies will not affect the production methods honed by several generations of craftsmen and technologists for a long time to come.

The Foodbay marketplace offers to familiarize yourself with the catalog of equipment for production.

Sprats have long been a brand and a symbol of the wealth of the Russian family. However, not everyone knows what kind of fish sprats are made of in our time. If initially canned food was made only from Baltic sprats of the herring family, now any small fish is produced under this trademark - anchovies, sprat, small Baltic herring, herring fry and Caspian sprat. What kind of fish is used for sprats in Baltic production? Well-known Baltic factories for the manufacture of canned food select only the best sprats, preserving the traditions of production and taking care of their reputation. No one knows who invented sprats, but at the end of the 19th century they were produced at one of the fish enterprises in Riga. An earlier history of the origin of sprats is unknown - it is quite possible that for the first time sprats began to be smoked in the Baltic states, which have access to this fish.

The composition of sprats is simple - fish, oil, pepper and salt, as they say, nothing more. Usually, the fish is first smoked, but some manufacturers process sprats with “liquid smoke” in order to save money - only real gourmets and connoisseurs of sprats can distinguish such canned food. The benefits of sprats in oil are obvious, since fish contains essential amino acids, fat-soluble vitamins A and E, polyunsaturated fatty acids, vitamin D and calcium, and only those who have problems with the kidneys or liver can feel the harm of canned food, because sprats contain a lot of salt and oils. Also, fish cooked using “liquid smoke”, which contains carcinogens, is not very healthy, so you should not get carried away with such canned food. Not everyone knows how many calories are in sprats in oil, and this is especially true for those who are on a diet. There are 363 calories in 100 g of canned food, and the main calorie load falls on oil, since the fish itself is considered dietary. Salads, snacks, sandwiches, pizza, pies, quiches and other delicious dishes are prepared from sprats, although in Soviet times sprats were an independent snack on the festive table. Among

In a huge workshop, women in blue caps string small fish on iron rods, as if now they are about to fry shish kebab from sprat. They do this trick a thousand times a shift, five thousand times a week, and their life bill goes into the millions. Residents of the small Latvian town of Salacgrīva have been working at the fish processing plant for dynasties, from a young age to retirement.

Their hands smelled of fish like the hold of a fishing trawler, and their eyes, trained to fish for spoils, are as sharp as the eyes of an albatross. The salacgriva is tickled by the cold Baltic, the prickly sea wind blows, keeps the market in good shape. But women have jobs, and that's the main thing. A bit of the sea, soot and hard work in a report from the exemplary Latvian production of sprats.

In Salacgriva, the off-season is in mid-June, just at the time of our arrival, the company is finalizing the last days. Brīvais Vilnis is about to close for a big summer break. The last batches of fish are on the line. Process controller Henry Babris leads us to the dock. The sea had just played with the sun, and now it started to rain. It is unstable in the Baltic - it happens that it is very stormy here.

We are at the starting point of a large canning route. They do not catch fish on their own at the enterprise, they buy it from private traders. Fresh sprat and herring are supplied by small fishing companies - the fish lives in local waters. Herring, mackerel, sardinella and other "atlantic" are received in containers in frozen form from abroad.

“Classic sprats are made from sprat,” says Henry Babris right away. - But you can also make it from a small herring. By taste, however, they can be easily distinguished. The taste of sprats from winter and summer sprats, from fresh and frozen sprats differs. The best are winter, from a fresh catch.

At the "entrance" all raw materials are checked, samples are taken for the laboratory. If the fish is fresh, part goes to the shop for the sorting line, and part is frozen at a temperature of minus 18 degrees. So it can be stored up to 9 months.

Sprats are thawed in defrosting chambers - the temperature rises to plus 10 degrees.

The next step, and one of the most important, is sorting. Almost perfect fish is selected for sprats. Whole, not dented, without damage. Suitable carcasses measuring 11-13 centimeters.

Our guide makes a small digression. What is it all about - Riga sprats? In the mid-1990s, an association of the same name was created in Latvia, which united the largest fish processing enterprises in the country. The Association is the holder of the collective trademark "Riga sprats in oil" and controls the quality of products. The requirements for it are extremely stringent. That is why sorting is carried out exclusively by hand - so as not to damage the fish. There have been attempts to automate the process. But the efficiency of women's hands turned out to be higher than that of a mechanical "robot".

Workers do not have time to look around and pose for the photographer. In front of them is a fish in a pan. A lot of fish. The master gives the command: “We string the little one!” And they string, putting a large one in a separate box, since it is impossible to smoke sprats of different sizes at the same time. Soon the master will shout: “We are stringing a large one!” And so on throughout the shift.

This is not an easy process. We are told that at any time the worker can get up and rest. Each is given a certain number of pans. Fill it all out and you'll get a token. The more tokens per day, the higher the salary. The one who gives a lot of marriage can be de-bonded. Only the most experienced work on sorting raw materials for the elite products of the plant - "Royal Sprats".

The strung fish is already ready for smoking. Although not quite. Workers leave it for a while so that the glass is damp. The sprat needs to be moved apart so that the fish do not stick together. When smoked, this can lead to marriage.

Preparing the mixture for smoking - we will have smoke from alder.

The fish moves through the tunnels, where they go through various stages of smoking - about 15 steps. Smoke is prepared here, steam is supplied there. The smoker regulates the flow of the mixture and the temperature in each zone. Keeps track of moisture levels. The workers are all experienced, mostly men. The quality of the product that the buyer purchases in the store largely depends on their skills.

Before us is an almost finished semi-finished product - smoked sprat of a characteristic golden color. Then the heads of the fish will be cut off, and the carcasses will be sent for cooling. The heads will be sold as recyclables.

Laying. Already during smoking, the master will determine which raw materials will be used for Riga sprats, and which for simple ones. Or, for example, on a pate. Or maybe a sprat in a tomato.

Each worker on the stack has a scale. Sprats try to lay beautifully, figured. To look aesthetically pleasing and presentable. Henry says:

- By opening the jar, you can determine whether the manufacturer cheated or not. If the fish is laid with their bellies up, this is a good sign. After all, if the raw material is of poor quality or it was badly smoked, then they usually put it back up. The bellies are opened first, the "hacks" need to hide it. It is also important whether there is damage in the first row. By our standards, they shouldn't be.

And here the work is normalized - by the number of cans.

“We have people who work as families,” the interlocutor continues. There are practically no places in the vicinity where middle-aged women can get a job. But even in such a situation, it is not possible to recruit another shift of workers. However, we do not need volume, but quality.

Some kind of spell! In general, it seems to us that this is extreme idealism - to put fish in a jar at a price of € 1, as if it were not golden, but golden. Moreover, under a tin lid, all the efforts of workers from Salacgrīva cannot be seen by a potential buyer. The plant understood this a long time ago. Workers say it has become impossible to compete with manufacturers who throw crumpled semi-finished products into their cans and dump them:

- Both in Russia, and in Ukraine, and in Belarus, they are trying to make sprats from damaged fish. As a result, consumer confidence in the product is lost. We went the other way.

A few years ago, know-how was introduced here - jars with a transparent lid. Now the buyer will see exactly what they want to sell to him. No more jar secrets. Behind the "honest" packaging, albeit more expensive, they believe here is the canning future.

Various variations of sprat in tomato. Tomato sauce at the enterprise is brewed by ourselves, without using cheap powder substitutes. It turns out expensive. The cost of a high-quality thick sauce is almost the same as the cost of fish.

There is no point in saving. An interesting thing: in Ukraine, our sprat in tomato is five times more expensive than the local one, but they buy it perfectly. So people are willing to pay for quality,” says Henry.

And we're back to sprats. The banks are already closed. They are washed and then sent to autoclaves for sterilization.

- We do not add any preservatives and antioxidants: there is no need. The product is sterilized completely, the jars are sealed. Each type of canned food has its own sterilization formula. Thus, a 2-3-year shelf life is achieved.

Most of the equipment at the enterprise is still Soviet-made. It does not look very presentable, it does not smell like perfume. The equipment is regularly repaired and maintained in good condition. Some of them were bought with European money. It's strange: they look at modernization here a little differently than in Belarus. It turns out that the point is not in new lines for millions, which are so nice to get on the account. The essence, we are told, is in ideas and innovations - that's how it is in the same transparent packaging.

- No matter how hard they try in the same Kaliningrad, they cannot get the same high quality. Even on the new ultra-modern equipment. Our smokers have decades of experience, and the bosses don’t shout from above: give us the cost price, - that’s Henry’s opinion.

After sterilization, the jars are washed again, dried with steam and sent for pasting with a label. Everything can be loaded into the warehouse and sent with an opportunity to the counter.

“In fact, not much has changed in production technology since Soviet times,” the controller argues. - Unless then they looked not where you can save money, but where to steal. Now all employees of the enterprise understand perfectly well: we will survive only due to high-quality work. Let's give way to competitors - we'll die. Nobody will help us.

Chairman of the Board of Brīvais Vilnis Arnolds Babris tells how the company manages to stay afloat.

— It was a difficult period. The banker gave money - start-up capital. We talked with the team, chose a niche - to provide the highest quality on the market. And they started to work. We optimized what we could to the maximum. In 2004, everyone was chasing the price, and we decided to take on the topic of exclusivity, an expensive segment. They began to produce "Royal sprats". The first began to work with plastic. The tear-off lid is also our invention. And there are many such innovations.

In 2006, either from the foam of the sea, or from a secret Baltic depression, a water one appeared. His name was Onishchenko, and he loved to find in things what was hidden. In the Latvian sprats, the chief supervisory officer of the Russian Federation found benzapyrene - and banned the supply of products to the Russian market.

Here in this very office, Arnold Babris shows us, he put Onishchenko in his place.

- Immediately after the accusations were made, I ordered the products of Russian manufacturers and sent them to Germany for control. It was a terrible picture. I called the TV people, I show: look, where is this benzapyrene. Show Onishchenko to know. For several years, deliveries to the Russian Federation stopped. But the plant was built according to such a model that at any moment we can “close” any country without loss by moving to another market. Now a contract has been signed with China - a minimum monthly shipment worth at least €250,000. And we won't be lost without Russia.

Traditional weekly tasting: managers and employees evaluate the quality of the products produced. In addition to sprats, these are several dozen types of various canned food

Surviving after a heavy tasting is not easy. This food is definitely not healthy.

What about Belarus? At one time, Brivais Vilnis supplied about 12% of the total production to Belarus. After the crash of 2011, the numbers were not so pleasant.

— I must be sure that in return for the product I will receive money without delay. Everything is simple. The level of profitability for canned food is 5% of turnover. Only! We cannot afford to take risks,” says Arnold Babris.

Finally, we are interested in the leader: is he sure that in the age of healthy eating, people will continue to eat canned food?

- They will. But the question is volume. Sprats have always been a delicacy. This is by no means consumer goods, not a product for every day. In Soviet times, there was a GOST, and all sprats were good. Then the image of the product was undermined. During the perestroika period, sprats became a commodity. “Do you give sprats? Yes! What price?" And off we go. Due to the decrease in quality and price, the product has become virtually inedible. A person opens a can, looks, throws it away - this is what the market glut has led to. I can say for sure that sprats will not disappear anywhere. But the market will shrink. I believe that only those who produce a quality product will remain.

Having worked hard enough, Salacgriva is resting. The fish factory is a city-forming enterprise. 450 people are employed here. If the plant falls down, the town will immediately collapse. And he doesn't get fat either. Due to the abundance of manual labor, a third of the cost of a tin can is the salary of workers. A good stacker earns an average of €300. And this is the highest salary in the industry. People want more. But for now, it's the ceiling. Nobody said that the market is easy.

There is, of course, an important detail here. Whatever storm hits, a niche plant is unlikely to lose ground. Here they learned to live within their means and count every penny. Without any government support, they will somehow survive.

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Every day, fishing vessels come to ports with their catch on deck. It is reloaded, transported to the fish factory. Here it gets into the sorting shop - herring, sprat, herring, and other varieties. And from what fish do sprats, a product familiar to all of us in jars, be made? Initially, they were made from one raw material - the Baltic sprat, which is a subspecies of the European one. After they began to use the Caspian (Black Sea sprat) and herring. And also juvenile herring, another trifle.

Habitat and subspecies

What kind of fish are sprats made from? Actually Sprattus sprattus, or European sprat, can be found in the Russian Federation in the Baltic and North Seas. And in the Black and Mediterranean subspecies Sprattus phaericus lives, which is smaller and serves as a dinner for dolphins and predatory fish. In the Falkland Islands area, Sprattus fuegensis is found - and in rather large flocks - which grows up to 17 centimeters in length.

The New Zealander is distinguished by the spines of the keeled belly scales. Large flocks of this subspecies graze near the eastern coast of New Zealand and stay here in November and during the next month. They are accompanied by many predatory fish and sea birds that feed on sprats. In a word, near New Zealand, this fish plays an important role as a food base.

Canned food "Sprats in oil"

Although for ichthyologists sprats are only Sprattus sprattus, for the processor it is any small fish - sprat, herring, herring, for example - smoked and then rolled up in a jar with salt and oil. But before becoming a favorite dish in the context of cooking, she will have to go through a series of transformations. What kind of fish are sprats made from? All raw materials are sorted by a special device according to dimensions. Fish for sprats in jars gets at least 9 centimeters in length (but not more than 20). Then it enters the tattoo shop, where workers are located along the tape, and they carefully monitor the external condition of the raw material. And if the skin is damaged, the fish is used for pate. Then whole sprats are pierced on skewers-rods (each holds 20 pieces). The work is manual: about 300 bars fall on any worker per day, and about six thousand carcasses pass “through hands” per shift. And after a few tens of minutes, the raw material takes on approximately the form that we are used to seeing when opening a jar.

About cooking technology

As a rule, seven or eight frames with carcasses are hung in a specialized oven. Here fish (sprat, or herring, or sprats) are dried for 10 minutes in well-heated air. After that, it is steamed, and it is smoked for another quarter of an hour. Let it cool down at the end.

Second phase

Fish (herring, sprat or Sprattus) are returned to the conveyor and brought into the appropriate form prescribed by GOST. First, future sprats go through the stage of guillotining (in simple terms, they cut off their heads - for this they use a circular knife). Further, the blanks are placed in jars - also manually - in an original way. The first layer is placed belly down, and the 2nd layer is belly up, for beauty! You open the jar, and there is a goldfish - smoked, tasty and fragrant. When open, the jars move along the conveyor. There, vegetable oil is poured into them and salt is added. The last stage is rolling up the can. Finished products are packed in boxes and placed in a warehouse. Here, within a month, the sprats must ripen, that is, soaked in oil and salt.

What kind of fish are sprats made from?

Let's take canned food from various manufacturing companies. On jars everywhere it is written "sprats". Let's look, however, at the composition (in small letters). On one is written "smoked fish", on the second - "sprat", on the third - "herring fish". The thing is that from such fish the most delicious canned food is obtained - sprats in oil. By the way, more and more often now the dish is prepared from herring - there are a lot of it in the Baltic. But the real Sprattus is becoming rarer. Today, in principle, any small fish has a chance to become a dish called sprats, if it is smoked using the appropriate technology and fits in a can!

at home

Finally, we offer an option, so to speak, hand-made. According to guests, such fish are tasty and fragrant - no worse (but undoubtedly more beneficial for the body) than a store-bought product. So, let's try to cook homemade sprats. We need 1200 grams of herring (now it can be purchased at any supermarket). By the way, you can use both capelin and fresh-frozen sprat. The main thing is that the fish are unsalted and correspond to the usual sizes for the dish. You also need to take one and a half glasses of water and two-thirds of a glass of vegetable oil, a large spoonful of tea leaves, two small spoons of salt, a few laurels, a small bag of black peppercorns. And most importantly - onion peel!

Marinade

The marinade is prepared first. Take a pot that is not too big. Washed onion peel is laid out there, bay leaf with pepper (peas) is added, everything is poured with water and put on fire. The future marinade is brought to a boil and cooked over low heat for 5-7 minutes. Then tea is added there - it is ordinary, black leaf, and granulated is allowed. Everything is well mixed. The fire is turned off, and the saucepan is covered with a lid. Let the marinade infuse.

We cook simply!

In the meantime, the fish is being cleaned (if you bought it frozen, you must first defrost it naturally). The heads come off and the guts are removed. In purified form, it turns out about a kilogram of raw materials. Now a pan with a thick bottom (or cauldrons) is taken, and the carcasses are placed in it tightly, backs up.

The first layer, when laid out, is followed by the second (also with the backs up). Well, the herring is laid, while we set it aside. While the fish was being prepared, the marinade was infused. But first it needs to be strained. For this procedure, a sieve is taken, and through it all the liquid is drained into a container prepared in advance. The tea leaves are also squeezed out - it just gives a rich golden color. Cakes are thrown out.

Salt is added to the marinade and mixed well. If you want sprats to have a truly smoky flavor, add a large spoonful of "liquid smoke" seasoning. Those who consider it harmful do without this procedure. Fill the fish in a container with marinade plus vegetable oil. Carcasses should be completely covered with marinade. The saucepan is put on fire, brought to a boil. Then a small fire is made so that the herring boils just a little. Cover tightly with a lid and simmer on the stove for about an hour. After this time, the lid opens, the gas turns off, and we let the fish cool completely. Since if it is laid out in a hot state, it will fall apart. Cooled home-style sprats can be stored in the same bowl at the bottom of the refrigerator. Such a delicious semi-finished product can be successfully used in a salad, for sandwiches and so easy to eat. Bon appetit everyone!