If you want to surprise the guests and please your loved ones with an unusual and royally exquisite fish dish, then pike perch baked in the oven is just what you need. It is a very useful and at the same time tasty fish, not too bony, almost entirely composed of easily digestible protein, with tender pulp. With the observance of cooking technology, pike perch will be juicy and appetizing.
Cooking Features
In order for a dish of rare and noble fish to be royally tasty, you need to know how to choose it correctly and prepare it for baking.
- Frozen fish is poorly suitable for baking, but if there is no choice, then it should be thawed gradually, in the refrigerator.
- When choosing a fresh pike perch, you should make sure that it is actually fresh. To do this, you need to raise the carcass in the middle. If the tail and head hang down strongly, then you can be sure that the pike perch is waiting for its buyer for too long. Preference is better to give the fish with a more elastic carcass.
- Pike perch has spiky fins, so for their own safety they must be cut off with special scissors at the very beginning of gutting.
- Small and tight scales are the source of another possible problem, namely, littering the kitchen. To prevent the scales from scattering throughout the room, it is better to clean the pike perch in water or attach a protective screen made of a plastic bottle to the knife.
- The next danger lurks when gutting a pike perch. The fact is that his gallbladder is very close to his head, and inexperienced hostesses damage him, which is why the fish gets a bitter taste. For this reason, gut perch should be especially careful.
- If you plan to bake the whole perch, then it is not necessary to chop off his head. It is enough to remove the gills and eyeballs.
- For cooking stuffed pike perch, it is better to gut and fill with minced meat through the back. In this case, the costal bones are required to be cut (not to extend with your fingers, namely, to cut, otherwise the belly will become loose, and not all bones can be extracted in this case).
- Bake the perch in the oven should be in foil. Previously, in order to preserve its juiciness, they used dough; foil serves as a simpler alternative to it. 15 minutes before baking is completed, it can be turned to make the pike slightly brown.
Certain intricacies of cooking in the oven of whole baked perch can depend on the selected recipe.
Pike perch baked entirely in foil
Composition:
- pike perch - 1 kg;
- onions - 100 g;
- parsley - 50 g;
- tomato - 150 g;
- lemon - 1 pc .;
- mustard (powder) - 50 g;
- vegetable oil - 20 ml;
- salt, a mixture of peppers - to taste.
Method of preparation:
- Prepare the pike perch for baking by cutting off the fins, cleaning, removing the insides and rinsing well, drying the carcass.
- Rub the carcass from all sides, including the inside, with salt and pepper. Leave for 20 minutes.
- Cut the lemon in half, squeeze the juice from one part, add 10 ml of oil and mustard. Mix thoroughly. Process the lemon-mustard mixture carcass and leave for another 10-20 minutes.
- Wash the tomato, cut it in half and cut into semicircles.
- After peeling the onion from the husk, cut it into thin half rings.
- Cut the remaining half of lemon into halves.
- Make cross sections on the fish carcass at a distance of 1.5 cm from each other. In each paste on a slice of tomato and lemon.
- Fold a large sheet of foil in half, place the fish on it. Put the remaining tomatoes and lemon slices on top, cover them with onion half rings.
- Chop parsley with a knife and sprinkle a dish on it.
- Wrap the perch in foil.
- Place in a preheated 180 degree oven for 45 minutes.
- After that, unfold the foil, and increase the temperature in the oven to 200-220 degrees. Bake the pike perch for another 15 minutes.
It’s best to serve zander with a side dish of potato or steamed rice. Do not forget to add the vegetables with which he baked.
Stuffed perch baked in the oven
Composition:
- pike perch - 1, 5 kg;
- onions - 150 g;
- carrots - 0, 2 kg;
- potatoes - 0, 4 kg;
- champignons - 0, 4 kg;
- sour cream - 150 ml;
- lemon - 1 pc .;
- ground coriander - to taste;
- salt - to taste;
- nutmeg - to taste;
- ground pepper (black or white) - to taste;
- vegetable oil - 100 ml;
- butter - 30 g.
Method of preparation:
- Prepare a pike perch carcass for stuffing through the back. To do this, cutting off the fins and cleaning the scales, make two cuts close to the ridge from the back, holding the knife flat, after which the ridge is cut with scissors and removed, the insides are removed through the cut, the carcass is thoroughly washed.
- Mix salt, pepper, coriander and a pinch of nutmeg, rub this mixture into the carcass, especially from the inside.
- Wash mushrooms, pat dry, cut into thin plates.
- Peel the onions and carrots, chop them, rub the carrots on a coarse grater and cut the onions into small pieces.
- Heat vegetable oil in a pan, leaving a little to lubricate the foil. Put the mushrooms and fry them until the moisture evaporates.
- Add onions, carrots and butter, lightly salt and pepper, fry everything together for 5 minutes.
- Add sour cream and saute the filling for 10 minutes.
- Stuff pikeperch.
- Make not too frequent cuts on the sides, put in thin slices of lemon.
- Lubricate the foil.
- Cut the peeled potatoes into thin slices and place on the foil.
- Place the fish on its belly with the belly down.
- Cover it with the remaining potato pieces and pack in foil, as in a candy wrapper, leaving some free space inside for air circulation, then increase the temperature to 220 degrees, unfold the foil and bake for another 20 minutes.
As a garnish, potatoes are baked with him to the stuffed pike perch.
Pike perch baked in the oven entirely - a truly festive dish that is unlikely to leave anyone indifferent.
