Capelin in tea leaves recipe. How to make sprats at home from capelin. Homemade capelin sprats in a saucepan or slow cooker

Capelin is an inexpensive, but tasty, fatty and healthy fish. Because of its small size, not all housewives respect it, and this is completely in vain. If you cook this fish successfully, it will be able to seriously compete with dishes from larger inhabitants of reservoirs. Experienced housewives know how to pickle capelin in different ways. The result is an excellent snack. Salted capelin can also be served with potatoes or vinaigrette, and used to make salads and sandwiches. This treat is inexpensive, but many people like it.

Cooking features

To prevent home-salted capelin from disappointing you, your household and guests, you need to know a few things.

• Be careful when choosing capelin. If you see that the fish looks dented or broken, has an unnatural color, or there is water or snow in the package, it is advisable to refrain from purchasing. You should also pay attention to the date of packaging of the product, its expiration date, as well as the integrity of the packaging.
• Fresh fish is always juicier than frozen fish, but capelin is sold mainly fresh frozen. It doesn't matter if you let it thaw in natural conditions, avoiding temperature changes. If you take the capelin out of the freezer a day before cooking and put it in the main chamber of the refrigerator, they will have time to thaw by the right time, while maintaining their juiciness and beneficial properties. An attempt to speed up the process using a microwave or warm water will have unpleasant consequences: the fish will turn out to be dry, loose, and fragile.
• Before salting, capelin should be washed and dried with a napkin. Whether to gut it and fillet it depends only on the wishes of the housewife. Usually capelin is salted whole or gutted carcasses, but it can also be salted already filleted. Then the salting will take 3 times less time, and eating the finished snack will be more enjoyable. However, in order not to clean the fish at the table, you will have to tinker with its cutting at the first stage of preparation.
• If you want your salted capelin to be aromatic and have a piquant taste, it makes sense to rely on freshly hand-ground spices rather than on ready-made store-bought spice sets.

You can salt capelin in brine or dry method. Each method has several recipes. The technology for salting fish may vary slightly depending on the chosen salting option. If you carefully read the recommendations accompanying the selected recipe, you will be able to avoid mistakes and get the expected result.

Classic recipe for salting capelin in brine

• capelin – 0.7 kg;
• salt (coarsely ground) – 60 g;
• bay leaf – 5 pcs.;
• cloves – 10 pcs.;
• allspice – 8 pcs.;
• water – 1 l.

Cooking method:

• Thaw the capelin, wash, gut, decapitate, and let the fish dry slightly.
• Boil water for brine. Throw spices into it (without chopping), add salt. Simmer over low heat for a few minutes until the salt dissolves.
• Remove the pan with brine from the stove. Let it cool to room temperature.
• Place the capelin in a glass or plastic container and fill with brine.
• Cover and put in the refrigerator.

The capelin will be ready for consumption in 24 hours. Before serving, it doesn’t hurt to rinse it, sprinkle with lemon juice or vinegar, and sprinkle with chopped parsley.

Capelin in brine with garlic

• capelin – 1 kg;
• water – 1 l;
• garlic – 2 cloves;
• cumin – 5 g;
• coriander – 5 g;
• cloves – 10 pcs.;
• allspice peas – 10 pcs.;
• bay leaf – 3 pcs.;
• lemon juice – 20 ml;
• coarse salt – 60 g.

Cooking method:

• Wash the capelin. Cut off the heads of the fish, gut the carcasses, and rinse again. Let the fish dry a little and place in a bowl or mold.
• Cut the garlic into slices, add to the fish, stir. Sprinkle it with lemon juice and stir again.
• Boil water and dissolve salt in it.
• Pour boiling water over spices. Wait for the brine to cool to room temperature. Pour it over the fish.

Place the container with capelin in the refrigerator and wait 24 hours - this will be enough for it to salt.

Recipe for dry salting capelin

• capelin – 1 kg;
• bay leaf – 3 pcs.;
• cloves – 5 pcs.;
• coriander – 5 g;
• salt – 60 g.

Cooking method:

• Grind the coriander and cloves in a spice grinder or coffee grinder.
• Break the laurel leaves and crush them.
• Mix coriander, cloves and bay leaves with coarse salt.
• Wash and dry the fish with a napkin. Place it in a bowl.
• Sprinkle with a mixture of salt and spices. Mix with your hands.
• Cover the fish with a flat plate and place a liter jar filled with water or other weight on top. To make the jar hold better, you can first lay a napkin on the plate.
• Place the capelin in the refrigerator.

You can try capelin salted according to this recipe after 12-18 hours, depending on the size of the fish.

Recipe for salting capelin with salt and sugar

• capelin – 1 kg;
• salt – 40 g;
• sugar – 20 g;
• butter, onions - for serving.

Cooking method:

• Wash the capelin, clean it, removing the heads. Rinse again and dry.
• Mix salt and sugar and rub each fish with this mixture.
• Place the capelin on cling film, wrap it in it and put it in the refrigerator.

In a day, capelin, salted according to this recipe, will be ready for use. Before serving, the fish should be washed, dried with a napkin, sprinkled with onion cut into thin half rings and poured with vegetable oil.

Recipe for salting capelin with the addition of citrus fruit juice

• capelin – 1 kg;
• sugar – 20 g;
• salt – 60 g;
• lemon, orange or grapefruit juice – 40 ml.

Cooking method:

• Wash the capelin, clean it, cut it into fillets. If you find caviar, do not throw it away, but salt it along with the fillet.
• Place the capelin fillet in a plastic container or glass dish.
• Sprinkle the fish with a mixture of salt and sugar and stir gently.
• Pour in citrus juice and stir again.
• Cover the mold with gauze or cloth and leave for 1.5 hours at room temperature.

If you do not like lightly salted fish, you can extend the salting time by another 1-1.5 hours. You shouldn’t keep it in the marinade longer, otherwise it will become oversalted. This recipe allows you to pickle capelin quickly.

Spicy salted capelin

• capelin – 1 kg;
• coarse salt – 20 g;
• granulated sugar – 20 g;
• bay leaf – 2 pcs.;
• allspice peas – 10 pcs.;
• cloves – 10 pcs.;
• lemon – 0.5 pcs.

Cooking method:

• Using a pepper mill or coffee grinder, grind the cloves and allspice.
• Break and grind the laurel leaves in a mortar.
• Wash and dry the lemon. Grate the zest from half the fruit.
• In a small bowl, combine salt, sugar, bay leaf, pepper, cloves and lemon zest.
• Squeeze the juice from half a lemon into a separate cup.
• Wash and dry the capelin, place it in a glass dish.
• Sprinkle with sugar, salt and spice mixture and mix well with your hands.
• Pour lemon juice over the fish and stir again.
• Cover the container with capelin and put it in the refrigerator.

You can eat spicy salted capelin prepared according to the given recipe after 24-36 hours, but if you keep it in the spicy marinade for an extra day, its taste and aroma will only improve.

Recipe for salting capelin with spices and honey

• capelin – 1 kg;
• onions – 0.25 kg;
• garlic – 3 cloves;
• lemon – 0.5 pcs.;
• allspice peas – 7 pcs.;
• cloves – 3 pcs.;
• vegetable oil – 80 ml;
• mustard seeds – 5 g;
• coriander – 5 g;
• salt – 10 g;
• honey – 5 ml.

Cooking method:

• Prepare the capelin. It needs to be washed, gutted, and, if desired, cut into fillets. The head must be removed.
• Grind cloves, pepper, mustard and coriander using a special device or in a coffee grinder. Mix with a teaspoon of salt.
• Sprinkle the fish carcasses with spices and mix with your hands.
• Finely chop the garlic cloves and mash them together with the remaining salt.
• Add honey melted to a liquid state, juice squeezed from half a lemon and oil. Stir.
• Place the fish on the dish in which you plan to serve it.
• Peel the onion, cut it into thin half rings, and place on the capelin.
• Pour the marinade made from butter, honey and lemon juice over the capelin.
• Leave for an hour at room temperature, then put in the refrigerator for 2-3 hours. Filled capelin will marinate faster than simply peeled capelin.

Capelin salted according to the given recipe does not require additional preparation before serving: it is enough to remove it from the refrigerator.

Capelin is small in size, which is why some chefs treat it with disdain. However, this fish is tasty and healthy, and its relatively low price is an advantage. Home-salted capelin has excellent organoleptic qualities. It can be salted in brine or dry, whole or cut. There are recipes by which you can salt this fish quickly, literally in 3 hours. Salted capelin can be served as an independent snack or used to prepare other dishes.

We quite often buy sprats for sandwiches, and especially for holiday croutons, but their quality leaves much to be desired every year. I wanted to cook sprats at home for a long time, but there was no suitable recipe.

Still, I decided to try making sprats at home from frozen capelin and was very pleased with the result. It’s not difficult to prepare, you just need to spend time cleaning the fish. It's a pity that I didn't do enough to test it. The recipe is from the Internet, but I tried it.

The following ingredients will be required:

Thaw the fish and remove the heads and entrails. Be especially careful to remove the black part, which may taste bitter. Trim the tail and fins as well. Wash very well with cold water.

Pour boiling water over the tea leaves and brew, add salt until it dissolves in hot water.

Place the fish in a dish convenient for stewing sprat, maybe even in several rows, but my dish allowed me to put everything in one row. Add peppercorns, bay leaves, pour in brewed tea and vegetable oil.

According to the recipe, you need to put the fish in the oven and simmer there, but I did it on fire, the dishes allowed. Simmer for about 50 minutes.

The result was very tasty sprats, similar in taste to real ones.

Homemade capelin sprats are great for sandwiches and will look good on the holiday table.

Calories: Not specified
Cooking time: Not indicated

As a child, I really loved sprats, and for some reason I was sure that this was the name of the fish. And when dad, going fishing, asked what to catch, I always made him an order for sprats. Dad fulfilled the order, of course, but somewhat differently than I wanted. Along with a fresh catch of crucian carp and perch, he brought a jar of Riga sprats. I was both happy and not very happy - I really wanted to see such a fish in a fishing basket, and not in a tin can.
And one day I learned that sprats are not a type of individual fish, but any small fish. It can be capelin, herring and much more. But, I still liked the taste of smoked fish, which I simply put on buttered rye bread, sprinkled with herbs and washed down the sandwich with sweet tea.
But that was a long time ago; over time, my love for sprats passed, especially when I read in one gastronomic article that modern technologies make it possible to produce canned fish without the smoking process as such. And in most cases, the fish is treated with a chemical solution, the so-called “liquid smoke”, to give it the appropriate color and smell and taste.
And just recently, a colleague brought an amazingly tasty fish to work, I was sure it was canned sprats, but it turned out that she makes sprats from capelin at home herself. And the cooking recipe is unusually simple, both in the composition of the ingredients and in the degree of preparation.
The most important thing is to buy small fish, such as capelin or sprat. It’s better if it’s already headless, then all that’s left to do is rinse it and put it in the multicooker bowl. And then pour in a marinade of vegetable oil, spices, tea leaves and simmer for 2 hours.

Sprats from capelin at home - recipe with photos step by step

Ingredients:

- small fresh frozen fish (capelin) - 1 kg
- water - 250 ml
- sunflower oil - 60 ml
- salt - 1 tsp.
- soy sauce - 3 tbsp.
- dry cloves - 3 pcs.
- bay leaf - 3 pcs.
- black tea (dry brew) - 5 tsp.
- peppercorns - 5 pcs.

How to cook with photos step by step

Brew black tea in a separate bowl and let it brew for a while.




Strain the tea leaves and combine it with soy sauce, salt and oil.




Next, add spices to the marinade.

We wash the freshly frozen fish; if necessary, we cut off the heads and clean the entrails.




Place the prepared carcasses in the multicooker bowl.




Fill with marinade. If you don’t have a multicooker, you can safely simmer it in a thick-walled pan.






We set the “stewing” mode for 2 hours and wait until the fish is ready.

This is how you can easily prepare capelin sprats at home. Bon appetit!




Starinskaya Lesya
By the way, in the future you can do amazing

I will probably upset many if I say that it is difficult to prepare sprats from capelin without liquid smoke at home. It's almost impossible. Or rather, you can try it, but, alas, you won’t get that same smoky taste. The result is simply an appetizing golden fish without hard bones. For “real” sprats with a bright campfire aroma, concentrated smoke is a must. And it’s actually not as harmful and scary as it is sometimes portrayed on healthy food sites. Now almost all store-bought products are “smoked” in this way. So I advise you to cook both ways, and then compare the results.

Homemade capelin sprats in the oven

Why not trust the oven to cook sprats at home? Place the prepared capelin in the heated interior of the oven, and you can calmly go about your business. Nothing will run away or burn. Of course, if you remember the finished fish in time. But I think the endlessly appetizing aroma will not let you forget about the dish.

Ingredients:

How to prepare sprats from fresh frozen capelin at home:

Thaw fish if required. I recommend doing this slowly, then the capelin will better retain its shape, and the homemade sprats will turn out whole and beautiful. The most gentle defrosting is in the main compartment of the refrigerator. This may take up to 18 hours. Don't have time to wait that long? Remove the fish from the freezer and place in a bowl. Leave at room temperature for several hours. To speed up the process, prepare a deep bowl of cold salted water. Place the capelin there. After 40 minutes you can wash, dry and cook further. Remove the heads and entrails as desired. Be sure to rinse the fish and place in a colander to drain. Pat dry with paper towels.
Place in thick layers in a baking dish.
Prepare the brine. To do this, brew tea in about 150 ml of water. Let it brew for 10-15 minutes. Strain. Add salt and spices. If you don't mind liquid smoke, then pour in that too. It is almost impossible to prepare sprats from capelin without it at home. At least it didn't work for me. Of course, the fish will turn out tasty without this ingredient, but you won’t get that same smoky taste. Pour the resulting aromatic liquid over the fish. Pour refined oil on top. You may need a little more (so that the liquid completely covers the capelin). Place future sprats in an oven preheated to 200 degrees. After 10-15 minutes (when it boils), reduce the heat to 150 degrees and wait 2-3 hours. During this time, the liquid will almost evaporate, and the fish will acquire a golden hue. Leave the dish with capelin in the oven with the lid open until it cools completely. After all, sprats, even homemade ones, are not eaten hot.
You can serve it on sandwiches or just with potatoes, pasta or rice. Well, it turns out very tasty. And if you don’t add liquid smoke and use less spices, then this dish is also suitable for baby food. Little reluctant ones will happily eat fish in which the bones are not felt at all.

Homemade capelin sprats in a saucepan or slow cooker

To make the color of this fish appetizer more golden and rich, add a handful of onion peels. This harmless natural dye will make capelin very similar to Baltic sprats, and liquid smoke will give it a smoky aroma. The only thing is that there won’t be a black and yellow tin. But this is not the most important thing!

To prepare you will need:

How we will cook:

Thaw the fish. You've probably noticed that females and males are visually different. I suggest taking advantage of this circumstance and salting capelin caviar in parallel with preparing homemade sprats. A lot of fish per kilogram, considering that not all of them are females, will not work. But it’s enough for a couple of sandwiches. I specially took a photo of two fish so that it would be clear to beginners. Males (the first fish) are larger in size and have a caudal fin of a different shape. You don’t have to check them for the presence of caviar if you don’t plan to remove the heads. Rinse the separated caviar thoroughly, placing it in a colander lined with several layers of gauze. For 200 g of caviar you will need 1 tsp. fine salt with a small slide, 0.5 tsp. sugar, 1 tbsp. l. lemon juice and 1.5 tbsp. l. vegetable oil odor bases. Mix everything. Place in a sealed jar and refrigerate for 12 hours. All you have to do is buy a loaf of bread and butter, and your hearty snack is ready.
I always remove heads and entrails. Then rinse the capelin and drain in a colander.
To prepare sprats from capelin or any other fish at home, you will need a thick-bottomed pan, a Dutch oven or a multicooker bowl (if you prepare the appetizer in this appliance). Place the fish in it in dense, neat rows in 1-2 layers.
Set the prepared fish aside for now and prepare the brine. In principle, it can be cooked while capelin is defrosting. Pour about 400-500 ml of clean water into a saucepan or saucepan. Add onion skins and tea leaves (tea bags). Bring to a boil. Cook for 5-7 minutes. The liquid will take on a rich brown tint.
Remove the saucepan from the heat. Strain from the husks and tea leaves. Add salt.
And sugar. Stir until smooth.
Pour over the fish. Add pepper and bay leaf. If desired, you can add other spices or ready-made seasoning. Pour in liquid smoke (optional). Add vegetable oil. Cover the pan with a lid, leaving a small hole for steam to escape. Place over medium heat and bring to a boil. Then reduce the heat to low. And simmer homemade capelin sprats for about 2 hours. If you are preparing a dish in a slow cooker, close the appliance and set the “Stewing” program for 1.5-2 hours. You can also try it on “Baking”, at the lowest temperature.
Ready sprats will acquire a beautiful golden hue. And what a aroma! Be sure to refrigerate before serving. Better yet, keep it in the refrigerator for a couple of hours. And then you can make sandwiches, salads, snacks, or eat it just like that, with any side dishes and fresh vegetables.

Bon appetit!

Calories: Not specified
Cooking time: Not indicated

We treat our beloved and dear guests with homemade sprats. They are very tasty, ideally combined with pieces of fried loaf and delicate sweetish butter. Today we invite you to cook sprats yourself. Well, we will cook from capelin; herring is also suitable. We use strong brewed black tea as a dye. For spices, we give preference to aromatic bay leaves, black peppercorns and sea salt.

In such sprats there is no smell of smoking, but this point can be corrected. Before starting stewing, place several pieces of smoked fish, for example capelin, on the bottom of the dish. In this version, sprats are obtained with a subtle smoked aroma. Sprats from capelin at home, the recipe with photos of the preparation of which I offer, are suitable for sandwiches, salads, they go well with vegetable salads.



Grocery list:

- fresh frozen capelin – 500-600 g;
- water – 150 g;
- black leaf tea – 1 tbsp. l.;
- bay leaf – 4-5 pcs.;
- black peppercorns – 8-9 pcs.;
- vegetable oil – 60-70 g;
- sea salt – 1 tsp.

Recipe with photos step by step:

1. Pour one tablespoon of black leaf tea with hot water and brew strong tea for 5-6 minutes.

2. After the time has passed, strain the tea leaves through a fine strainer.




3. Pour sea salt into warm, strong tea until the warm liquid dissolves the crystals easily. Mix everything.




4. Defrost the capelin in advance, while it is not yet completely thawed, the cleaning process will be easier. So, tear off the head of the fish, gut the insides. If the capelin is fatty, with good caviar, do not throw away the caviar under any circumstances. It can be cooked together with fish, or it can be fried separately in breadcrumbs, or salted and then mixed with butter.






5. Choose the cooking process that is more convenient for you. Multicooker - “quenching” mode, for one hour. Oven - 80-100 degrees, for two hours, or cook on the stove if you have suitable utensils. So, place the fish and caviar at the bottom of a bowl or heat-resistant container.

6. Pour “salty” strong tea over the capelin.




7. Pour in a portion of vegetable oil that does not have a specific aroma.

After cooking, transfer the sprats into a small container, layer with oil, and store on the refrigerator shelf.




Serve the fish on slices of toasted French loaf with a slice of lemon. You can also cook