Differences between sturgeon fish. Difference between sterlet and sturgeon

In Rus', not a single royal feast was complete without fish dishes. Aspic and sterlet fish soup and large sturgeon baked with vegetables were considered special treats. These days these delicious dishes They are also a real table decoration. And although sturgeon and sterlet belong to the same sturgeon family, they have a number of differences, both external and taste. What are sterlet and sturgeon? Sterlet is a species of fish of the Sturgeon family. Sturgeon is a genus of fish of the Sturgeon family. Includes 19 species of fish (including sterlet). Difference between sterlet and sturgeon. Sturgeon are often quite large fish, characterized by large weight (more than 100 kg) and size (up to 6 m). Sterlet is the smallest fish of this family. Its length rarely exceeds 125 cm, on average it is 60 cm. The weight of the sterlet is up to 16 kg. But this does not mean that all adults weigh as much as average– 5-6 kg, adult fish weighing up to 3 kg are often found. The sterlet, unlike the sturgeon, has a narrower head, as well as a long and sharp nose.

Valuable fishermen say that, compared to sterlet, sturgeon has a “more seasoned” appearance. This small fish of the sturgeon family also has long, fringed antennae. Sterlet can be recognized by a large number of lateral scutes (bone scutes). She has up to 70 of them (while sturgeon rarely has 58). Sharp spines emerge from the scutes located on the back of the sterlet. Before spawning, sturgeon “fats up” in the sea, sterlet is a sedentary fish. Sturgeon meat is not as fatty (up to 15% fat) and drier than that of sterlet, whose fat content is up to 30%. Sterlet has a more delicate and delicate taste. Sturgeon miraculously “fits” into almost all existing fish dishes. The best dish made from sterlet is fish soup and aspic, although it can also be used to prepare many other dishes. The Difference determined that the difference between sterlet and sturgeon is as follows: Sturgeons are a genus of fish that belong to the sturgeon family. Sterlet is a species of fish in this family. Sterlet differs from other sturgeons in its smallest size. The sterlet has a small, narrow head. The sterlet's nose is longer and narrower than that of other sturgeons. Her antennae are fringed and quite long. The sterlet has more side bugs (up to 70 pieces) and has sharp spines on its back. Sterlet is a sedentary fish. Sterlet meat is fattier and more tender than that of other sturgeons.

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How to choose fish and not make a mistake

Sturgeon (beluga, sturgeon, stellate sturgeon, sterlet, etc.) are expensive fish, so sometimes they can “stale” on the counter. So it is best to buy live sterlet or small sturgeon. Or take the simpler route - buy frozen fish. But please note that at temperatures from 0° to -2°C, frozen fish must be sold within 24 hours.

Of all sturgeon, stellate sturgeon has the most tender, least fatty (up to 11% fat content) and fibrous meat. Sturgeon, whose meat can be compared in taste to veal, is the second most “fat” (11-15% fat content). This is followed by sterlet with tender and aromatic meat (up to 31% fat). And the beluga, the largest of the sturgeons, closes this honorable list - it contains up to 33% fat.

How to cook stellate sturgeon

The stellate sturgeon is uniquely distinguished from other sturgeons long nose, which has the shape of a dagger and gives it a very unusual look. The fish is sold frozen, hot and cold smoked, and in the form of balyk. It is good to steam it. And as a side dish for steamed stellate sturgeon, we suggest serving mushroom fricassee or vegetables stewed in wine, broth or cream. Stellate sturgeon accepts fruit sauces. As an option - kiwi sauce prepared in a steam bath. Rub the kiwi through a sieve, freeing the pulp from the seeds, add a few drops of Tabasco and a little butter. Evaporate and mix thoroughly.

Sturgeon dishes

Sturgeon, or, as it is also called, “river pig,” according to many chefs, is good in almost any form. It can be stewed in large pieces or even whole with vegetables, used boiled in salads and cold soups, baked in the oven in foil, or simmered in fish broth with dry white wine. The traditional Russian version - sturgeon is poached in a concentrated broth with wine vinegar and a large amount of herbs and spices, then kept for two days and served cold.

Stewed sturgeon is especially tasty with spicy vegetables, capers and pickles. Pieces of fish can be marinated a little in lemon juice. Cut carrots, celery tubers, small champignons, pickles and pitted olives into small cubes. Boil muscat wine, such as Madeira, cucumber pickle and some water with bay leaf and chopped parsley. Rinse the fish and simmer in wine broth for 20-25 minutes. Then remove the sturgeon and keep warm. Stew carrots and celery in butter, add olives, cucumbers, mushrooms, mix everything and simmer a little more. Strain the fish broth through a sieve, add capers and cook for 5 minutes. Mash a piece of butter in flour, combine with the broth and, stirring, cook until thickened. Pour the resulting sauce over the fish and serve with spicy vegetables.

Portioned pieces and fillets of sturgeon can be fried in a frying pan, grilled or in batter. The fillet can also be marinated and served cold - in this way we will pay tribute to Mediterranean traditions. To do this, the fish must be kept for a day in a mixture of white wine, 7% apple cider vinegar, coriander and white pepper, then washed and cut into thin slices.

Sturgeon also makes excellent minced meat, which can be used for making cutlets and filling ravioli. Add minced chicken, cream, chopped parsley root and a little torn Chinese lettuce to the sturgeon chopped in a blender.

Fennel, ginger, capers, garlic, marjoram, orange zest, parsley, lemon and pepper are suitable seasonings for sturgeon.

What to cook from sterlet

According to chefs, sterlet is best suited for aspic, fish soup, as a filling for kulebyak and pies, it can be baked and spit-roasted. At the same time, if you need sterlet in the form of fillets, then after cutting it should be frozen - this makes it easier to work with. And the skin is easier to remove, and the bones are more convenient to remove.

For a variation on the fish soup theme, you need to remove the skin from the fish. Boil the sterlet over low heat, fry the carrots and onions until dark golden brown, remove seeds from the blanched tomato and add to the fish along with other vegetables. Roots are also appropriate in this soup - celery, for example. At the very end, you can add 50 g of vodka and red hot pepper to 3 liters of fish soup.

Keep in mind that sterlet meat is very tender, so a good dish can only be prepared from live or chilled fish; frozen fish is incomparably worse in taste. By the way, there is a hybrid of sterlet and beluga - bester. This fish is bred in ponds and is sold only fresh.

Balyk and beluga cutlets

Beluga meat makes the best balyks and excellent cutlets; in addition, it can be stewed and served with a sauce of mushrooms, olives, lemon and capers. Beluga meat is somewhat rough in taste compared to the meat of other sturgeons, but beluga caviar is the highest quality and most expensive.

You can make the following sauce from it: 4 tbsp. l. concentrated fish broth, 1 tsp. blanched and seeded tomato, cut into small cubes, mix 10 g of grated butter in a heat-resistant bowl and heat without bringing to a boil. The mass should become homogeneous. At the very end add 1 tsp. caviar, stir and remove from heat.

Break up and have no regrets

So, despite the fact that all of the above fish belong to the same family, each species requires its own approach and a decent environment. But still there is general rules working with sturgeon. These are the cutting rules. And one more thing. The added beauty of all sturgeon is that the fish is 100% usable. The bone skeleton, cartilage and head are used for making broth and jellies, vizigu is used as a component of pickles and hodgepodges, for filling pies, kulebyak and pies, and liver and milk are used for pates.

Keep in mind that milk is a perishable product, so it should only be used on very fresh fish.

After thawing - if necessary - you should first separate the head with pectoral fins. Then the dorsal bugs (cartilage), vizig (dorsal notochord) and tail are separated. To remove “bugs” there is one very simple but effective technique. It is recommended to sear the fish on the cooking surface of the stove. The “bug” should hiss—after that, removing it will not be difficult. This is followed by stratification: the fish is placed back up and cut from head to tail.

The resulting halves have their own culinary name - “links”. Then the entrails are removed, and the links, depending on the size of the fish and the cooking needs, are cut into pieces. So, the beluga link, the most large fish, usually cut into two or three parts lengthwise, and then crosswise into pieces 40-50 cm long. Many cooks recommend scalding the links. This process, firstly, facilitates the removal of bone plates, and secondly, the pieces prepared in this way during the main heat treatment will not be deformed.

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Description of sterlet

Sterlet is a member of the subclass of cartilaginous fishes, also called cartilaginous ganoids.. Like all sturgeons, the scales of this freshwater predatory fish form something like bony plates, abundantly covering the spindle-shaped body.

Appearance

Sterlet is considered the smallest among all sturgeon species. The body size of an adult individual rarely exceeds 120-130 cm, but usually these cartilaginous animals are even smaller: 30-40 cm, and they weigh no more than two kilograms.

The sterlet has an elongated body and a relatively large, elongated, triangular head in comparison. Its snout is elongated, conical, with a lower lip divided in two, which is one of the most noticeable distinctive features this fish. On the bottom of the snout there is a row of fringed antennae, also characteristic of other representatives of the sturgeon family.

This is interesting! Sterlet comes in two forms: sharp-snouted, which is considered classic, and blunt-snouted, in which the edge of the muzzle is somewhat rounded.

Its head is covered on top with fused bone scutes. The body has ganoid scales with numerous bugs interspersed with small comb-shaped projections in the form of grains. Unlike many species of fish, the sterlet's dorsal fin is shifted closer to the caudal part of the body. The tail has a typical sturgeon fish shape, with its upper blade being longer than the lower one.

The body color of the sterlet is usually quite dark, usually grayish-brown, often mixed with a pale yellow tint. The belly is lighter than the main color; in some specimens it can be almost white. It differs from other sturgeon sterlet, first of all, in its interrupted lower lip and a large number of bugs, total quantity which may exceed 50 pieces.

Character and lifestyle

Sterlet is a predatory fish that lives exclusively in rivers, and prefers to settle in fairly clean reservoirs with running water. Only occasionally can it swim into the sea, but there it can only be found near river mouths.

In summer it stays in shallow water, and juvenile sterlet can also be found in narrow channels or bays near the mouths. By autumn, the fish goes to the bottom and lies in depressions called pits, where it overwinters. During the cold season, she leads a sedentary lifestyle: she does not hunt and does not eat anything. After the ice breaks up, the sterlet leaves the holes at the bottom of the reservoir and goes up the river in order to continue its race.

This is interesting! Unlike most sturgeon, which are considered fans of leading a solitary lifestyle, sterlet prefers to stay in large schools. Even in pits for the winter, this fish does not go alone, but in the company of its many relatives.

Several hundred sterlets sometimes overwinter simultaneously in one bottom depression. At the same time, they can be so closely pressed to each other that they can hardly move their gills and fins.

How long does a sterlet live?

Sterlet, like all other sturgeon fish, lives for quite a long time. Its lifespan in natural conditions can reach thirty years. However, in comparison with the same lake sturgeons, whose age reaches 80 years or even more, it would be wrong to call it a long-liver among representatives of its family.

Sexual dimorphism

There is no sexual dimorphism in this fish. Males and females of this species do not differ from each other either in body color or in size. The body of females, like the body of males, is covered with dense ganoid scales resembling bony protrusions, and the number of scales does not vary too much among individuals of different sexes.

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Range, habitats

It is also found in northern rivers, for example, in the Ob, Yenisei, Northern Dvina, as well as in the basins of Lakes Ladoga and Onega. In addition, this fish was artificially introduced into rivers such as the Neman, Pechora, Amur and Oka and into some large reservoirs.

Sterlet can live only in reservoirs with clean running water, while it prefers to settle in rivers with sandy or rocky-pebble soil. At the same time, females try to stay closer to the bottom of the reservoir, while males swim in the water column and, in general, lead a more active lifestyle.

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Sterlet diet

Sterlet is a predator that feeds most often on small aquatic invertebrates. The diet of this fish is based on bottom organisms, such as insect larvae, as well as amphipods, various mollusks and oligochaete worms that live at the bottom of the reservoir. The sterlet will not refuse the eggs of other fish; it eats it especially willingly. Large individuals of this species can also feed on small fish, but at the same time they try not to grab prey that is too large.

This is interesting! Due to the fact that female sterlet lead a bottom-dwelling lifestyle, and males swim in open water, fish of different sexes eat differently. Females look for food in the bottom sediment, and males hunt invertebrates in the water column. Sterlets prefer to hunt in the dark.

Fry and young fish feed on animal plankton and microorganisms, gradually expanding their diet by adding first small and then larger invertebrates.

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Reproduction and offspring

For the first time, sterlet spawns quite early for sturgeon: males are at the age of 4-5 years, and females - upon reaching 7-8 years. At the same time, it reproduces again 1-2 years after the previous spawning.

This period of time is necessary for the female to fully recover after the previous “birth”, which greatly depletes the body of representatives of this family.

The breeding season for this fish begins in late spring or early summer - approximately from mid-May to its end, when the water temperature in the reservoir reaches from 7 to 20 degrees, despite the fact that the optimal temperature for spawning for this species is 10 -15 degrees. But sometimes spawning can begin earlier or later than this time: in early May or mid-June. This is due to the fact that the water temperature required for spawning cannot be established for one reason or another. Also, exactly when sterlet spawning should begin is influenced by the water level in the river where it lives.

The sterlet living in the Volga does not all go to spawn at the same time. Individuals living upstream of the river spawn somewhat earlier than those who prefer to settle in the lower reaches. This is due to the fact that the spawning time of these fish falls on the greatest flood, and it begins in the upper reaches of the river earlier than in the lower reaches. Sterlet spawns in rapids, in places where the water is especially clean and the bottom is covered with pebbles. She is a fairly prolific fish: the number of eggs laid by a female at one time can reach 16,000 or even more.

Sticky eggs laid at the bottom develop for several days, after which fry hatch from them. On the tenth day of life, when their yolk sac disappears, the size of small sterlets does not exceed 1.5 cm. The appearance of juveniles in this species is somewhat different from the appearance of adult individuals. The larvae have a small, cross-sectional mouth, and the fringed antennae are approximately equal in size. Their lower lip is already divided in two, just like in adult sterlets. Upper part The heads of young fish of this species are covered with small spines. Juveniles are darker in color than their adult relatives; the darkening is especially noticeable in the caudal part of the fingerling's body.

For a long time, young sterlets remain in the place where they once hatched. And only by autumn, having reached a size of 11-25 cm, do they go to the river delta. At the same time, sterlets of different sexes grow at the same speed: both males and females from the very beginning do not differ from each other in size, just as they are the same in color.

This is interesting! Sterlet can interbreed with other fish of the sturgeon family, such as various types sturgeons, for example, Siberian and Russian sturgeon or stellate sturgeon. And in the 1950s of the twentieth century, a new hybrid was artificially bred from beluga and sterlet - bester, which is currently a valuable commercial species.

The value of this hybrid species is due to the fact that, like the beluga, it grows well and quickly and gains weight. But at the same time, unlike late-maturing belugas, besters, like sterlets, are distinguished by early sexual maturation, which makes it possible to accelerate the reproduction of these fish in captivity.

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Natural enemies

Due to the fact that sterlet lives in the water column or even near the bottom of reservoirs, these fish have few natural enemies.

And besides, main danger It threatens not adult individuals, but the eggs and fry of sterlet, which are eaten by fish of other species, including those belonging to the sturgeon family that live in sterlet spawning areas. At the same time, the greatest danger to juveniles is catfish and beluga.

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Population and species status

Previously, seventy years ago, sterlet was one of the fairly numerous and prosperous species, but by now pollution of water bodies with sewage, as well as excessive poaching, have taken their toll. So for some time now this fish has been listed in the Red Book as endangered, but international classification protected species, it would be assigned the status of “Vulnerable Species”.

Sturgeon and sterlet - the differences between these fish are insignificant, since they belong to the large sturgeon family, it includes 19 species, which includes the favorite of all gourmets - the sterlet. In Rus', these fish were considered royal, and this delicacy was a rather private treat at any feast. Under Peter the Great, sterlet breeding was established in Peterhof. They have not lost demand in modern world. These majestic, sought-after fish will grace any table. They have certain differences.

How do sturgeon and sterlet differ in appearance? Differences in magnitude are the first main criterion. Sterlet is considered the smallest in this family. In average individuals, the length can be up to sixty centimeters. They weigh from one to two kilograms. Male sterlet matures early. They go to spawn at about five years old, and females a little later: at seven or eight years old. The value of this commercial fish is undeniable. It can be bred in ponds and lakes. The record weight reaches 16 kg. Sturgeons are usually distinguished by the fact that they are larger and can weigh up to 100 kilograms, their length is about 5 meters.

In addition to length and weight, a number of characteristics of these two breeds are given below:

1. The sterlet's head has a narrower shape and a long, thin nose. In addition, she has a mustache in the form of a fringe.
2. A characteristic feature of sturgeon is the presence of scutes instead of scales, which differ in number. On the back of the sterlet there are spines that come out of the bony scutes, there are 70 of them in total. The sturgeon has 58 of them.
3. Before spawning, sturgeons live in the sea, and only during the period when they need to take care of their offspring do the fish come out into the sea. fresh waters- These are migratory fish. But sterlet is characterized by sedentism, unlike sturgeon.
4. Sturgeon has a dry taste, and the fat content of sterlet is slightly higher, it is 30% versus fifteen for sturgeon. Delicate and delicate taste Sterlets were appreciated by all gourmets.
5. These two subspecies differ even in their caviar. Due to the small size of the sterlet, the caviar in it is much less than that of the sturgeon. Its size is almost like beads and the color is more saturated.

So, we know the main differences between the two fish: all zoological reference books almost unanimously state that sturgeon is a genus of fish within the sturgeon family. The sterlet is included in this subgroup. Characteristic signs: a narrow head and a long pointed nose, the presence of fringed antennae and a large number of spines on the back - these are a number of main differences. The weight and dimensions are significantly smaller than those of other sturgeons. In addition, the sturgeon is more mobile than the sterlet. She is a homebody and leads a sedentary lifestyle and does not wander from freshwater to sea. Sterlet has fatty meat and a delicate taste.

Sturgeon fish dishes will decorate any table. The most valuable sterlet dish is rich fish soup and aspic. Sturgeon or sterlet, whichever you prefer, choose for yourself. Both of these options can decorate any table.

Most famous the following types sturgeon fish:

• stellate sturgeon;
• Kaluga;
• beluga;
• Russian sturgeon;
• sterlet.

Among the record holders of this family there were specimens about three meters long and weighing about two centners. The largest among the sisters is the beluga. Unique specimens are known whose length reaches four meters and weighs one ton. Beluga can be considered one of the largest fish on the planet.

Sturgeons feed mainly on animal food. These are worms, mollusks, insects. They do not disdain smaller fish either. Thus, this family can be classified as predators.

Once upon a time, sturgeon species lived in large numbers in the waters of the Volga and other rivers of Russia. Now modern ecological situation threatens the existence of many valuable fish species. Sturgeon are no exception. Some species are on the verge of extinction, so the state is strengthening measures to combat poaching.

Beluga and kaluga are considered the largest of their freshwater relatives. These migratory fish live for a very long time, sometimes the age of some centenarians reaches one hundred years.

The following subspecies are hybrid forms:

• beluga and sterlet (bester);
• sturgeon and beluga;
• beluga and thorn;
• sturgeon and beluga.

These hybrids are mainly inhabitants of the Sea of ​​Azov, and are sometimes found in some reservoirs.

Beluga flesh is a little coarser, but very suitable for making balyk. The best black caviar comes from this representative.

The hybrid obtained by crossing beluga and sterlet is called bester. This species is in great consumer demand due to its dietary properties. It is also a delicacy because it attracts those who want to try an extremely amazing-tasting product due to its visual appeal and aesthetics. The taste of caviar is in no way inferior to beluga caviar.

Fish without bones, The most delicious and healthy fish

Fish without bones

1. Fish without bones;
2. Bony fish (bony).

River fish and migratory fish

• Russian sturgeon

• Carp (wild carp)
• Pike perch (perch family)

Salmonidae

• Chum salmon (salmon fish)

sea ​​fish

• Vomer (selena, moonfish)
• Flounder (flat bottom fish)
• Mackerel (mackerel fish)
• Pollock (cod fish)
• Halibut (flounder)
• Haddock (cod family)

Sea fish without scales:

• Sea eel

River fish without scales:

• Burbot
• river eel

• Mackerel
• Cod
• Halibut
• Rainbow trout
• Sardines
• Herring
• Tuna

The most harmful and dangerous fish

Bony (bony) fish

Frying small fish without bones

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wpDiscuz Bream fishing

Fishing with a descender (combine)

What is a fish without bones? How to cut fish? What fish is the most delicious and healthy? How to cook bony fish? Let's try to answer these and other questions.

From a scientific point of view, fish are divided into bony and cartilaginous. These are two different classes of fish. U cartilaginous fish there are no gill covers and no swim bladder - these are different sharks, rays and chimeras. Bony fish have a developed bony skeleton, consisting of a vertebra and costal bones, and the gills cover the gill covers, and they have a swim bladder - that’s all river fish and most marine fish.

When we say “fish without bones,” we mean the absence of small fork bones, the number of which determines the bonyness of the fish.

Fish without bones

In cooking, sea and river fish are divided according to their bonyness:

1. Fish without bones;
2. Fish with a small number of small fork bones;
3. Bony fish (bony).

Within the framework of one article it is impossible to provide the entire list of river and sea ​​fish boneless, low-bone and bony fish - there are thousands of names. We will name only those types of fish that we often hear about, that we catch, cook or eat; there are no sharks or moray eels. The lists include fish that some people like and others don’t, some that are affordable and some that are expensive, some that are rare and some that are not so rare, and that vary in their degree of usefulness, safety, and taste. To avoid offending anyone, the names of the fish are in alphabetical order.

Fish without bones, or without small bones, are sturgeon, some cod and salmon. It can be river, lake, migratory or sea fish.

Migratory fish are fish that enter the fresh waters of rivers to spawn. Migratory salmon rise upstream in rivers, overcoming any obstacles in their path, spawn, and then slide downstream and die. Migratory sturgeons enter rivers, but do not rise high and return to the sea until the next spawning season. The river eel, on the contrary, goes to sea to spawn. Migratory and semi-anadromous fish can live in both fresh and salt water.

River fish and migratory fish

Sturgeon. List of these fish with photos

Sturgeon, sturgeon, is the general name for freshwater sturgeon, anadromous and semi-anadromous fish. This is an osteochondral fish species that can live 50, 100 or more years. Black caviar is a product of sturgeon fish.

• Beluga (the largest freshwater fish of the sturgeon family, listed in the Red Book)
• Kaluga (sturgeon freshwater fish of the beluga genus)
• Russian sturgeon
• Sevruga (sturgeon family, migratory fish)
• Sterlet (freshwater fish of the sturgeon family, grown in ponds and lakes)
• Thorn (sturgeon anadromous fish)

Other river fish without bones - list with photos

• Burbot (freshwater representative of cod)
• River lamprey (jawless predatory fish)
• River eel (migratory fish, spawns in sea water)

River fish with a few small bones:

• Carp (wild carp)
• Catfish (large freshwater predator)
• Pike perch (perch family)

Salmonidae

Salmon, salmon - the general name of fish of the salmon family, including freshwater inhabitants and walk-throughs. Red caviar is a delicacy, the roe of salmon fish.

• Pink salmon (genus of Pacific salmon)
• Chum salmon (salmon fish)
• Salmon (Atlantic salmon, lake salmon)
• Whitefish (salmonids, there are many varieties of whitefish)
• Taimen (freshwater fish, the largest representative of salmon, listed in the Red Book)
• Trout (several species of fish of the salmon family that live in fresh water)

sea ​​fish

Sea fish without bones are mainly fish from the cod, mackerel and horse mackerel families. In parentheses are notes and key features.

List of boneless (or almost boneless) sea fish:

• Vomer (selena, moonfish)
• Yellowtail, or lakedra (mackerel fish)
• Catfish (sea wolf, perciformes)
• Flounder (flat bottom fish)
• Mullet (there are freshwater representatives)
• Icefish (white pike)
• Mackerel (mackerel fish)
• Macrurus (rattail, deep-sea cod-like fish)
• Pollock (cod fish)
• Sea bream (perciform fish)
• Sea bass (Scarpenidae family)
• Conger eel (conger, passive poisonous fish)
• Sole sole (European sole, flounder fish)
• Navaga (Far Eastern navaga, cod family)
• Halibut (flounder)
• Haddock (cod family)
• Seabass (from sea bass, laurel, koykan, sea wolf, sea pike perch, etc.)
• Mackerel (mackerel family, order Perciformes)
• Horse mackerel (different types of fish from the horse mackerel family)
• Tuna (tunas are a group of fish of the mackerel family)
• Hake (hake, cod-like fish)

What fish has no scales? In fish, depending on the species, there are five different types scales. Most fish have scales, some are partially scaled, and a few fish have no scales.

Some fish species are mistaken for fish without scales. An example is sharks and rays. Indeed, sharks and rays do not have lamellar scales, since they are a different structure called placoid scales - rhombic plates with a spine protruding outward. Below is a list of edible fish without scales in whole or in part.

Sea fish without scales:

• Mackerel (spines present on the lateral line)
• Sea eel

River fish without scales:

• Naked carp (mirror carp is partially covered with large scales)
• Burbot
• Sturgeon (scales present on the tail)
• river eel
• Catfish (catfish are considered scaleless, but they have very small, dense scales that form a covering similar to skin).

Tench is sometimes mistaken for a fish without scales, but it has them. Tench have rather small and dense scales, covered with a dense layer of mucus, so the cover looks like skin.

Cutting river and sea fish

Before cutting the fish, it is prepared - thawing (if frozen) and soaking. Cutting a fish involves removing everything unnecessary - scales, entrails, skin, head, fins and bones. At the same time, according to the processing method, fish are divided into groups: scaly, scaleless and sturgeon. Fish with very small scales (catfish, navaga) are cut like fish without scales.

When preparing frozen fish for cutting and cooking, it is useful to know the following points:

1. The faster frozen fish thaws, the better the taste of the meat is preserved and the juicier it will be.
2. Scaly and scaleless fish are thawed in lightly salted water for two to five hours, depending on size.
3. Sturgeon, catfish, frozen fillets are thawed in air at room temperature.
4. Mackerel, navaga, hake, mackerel - do not thaw, they are easier to cut frozen.

Different types, methods and schemes for the primary cutting of different fish are demonstrated in the video below. Cutting river fish (perch, pike, burbot, pike perch, bream) and sea fish, cutting salmon and sturgeon:

Which fish is tastier and healthier?

We looked at many types of fish, some with more bones and others with fewer bones. We found out that there is fish without bones and scales. But is this enough to judge the culinary value of fish? No, not really.

In addition to the number of small bones, the meat different fish differs in many properties: taste, fat content, amount of protein, presence of useful minerals and vitamins. Availability and price of fish are also important.

Let's find out which fish is the most delicious and healthy, which fish you should stay away from, and what the cost of fish depends on.

The most delicious fish is the fish that you personally like best. There is an opinion that there is no such thing as tasteless fish - only improperly prepared fish. Generally recognized delicious fish considered: salmon, sturgeon, tuna, luvar. But some people will prefer grilled bream, fried pike perch or dried sabrefish to all these delicious fish.

The healthiest fish is the one whose meat contains more omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, which are simply necessary for the body. This means that these are “fatty” fish - tuna, halibut, mackerel, salmon. Let's arrange them in descending order by the amount of healthy fats:

• Wild salmon (any wild fish from the salmon family)
• Mackerel
• Cod
• Halibut
• Rainbow trout
• Sardines
• Herring
• Tuna

Despite the fact that tuna is often called the healthiest fish, it is at the end of the list of healthiest fish. This is because we used an objective approach and facts. The healthiest fish in terms of omega-3 content is wild salmon. It is the wild one, as well as the one grown in captivity, that often turns out to be harmful due to the feed additives that are used when growing it on fish farms. Just one hundred grams of wild salmon meat contain daily norm omega-3 fatty acids.

In general, any fish is considered dietary. More dietary fish is the one whose meat contains less calories and fat. Among river fish, these are pike, perch, and pike perch.

Marine dietary fish are hake, pollock and cod. It should be borne in mind that the dietary properties of fish largely depend on the method of its preparation. If you fry or smoke fish, the dietary properties of the fish will be lost. The most suitable methods for preparing dietary fish dishes are boiling or steaming.

The safety of fish depends on how you look at it. There are fish that you can eat even raw without worrying about danger. raw meat. The safest river fish can be considered fish from cold, clean and transparent fast rivers. However, sea fish is safer.

At the same time, it should be remembered that there are no completely safe products suitable for absolutely everyone. The safety of fish largely depends on the method of preparation.

The most harmful and dangerous fish

If there is the most useful fish, it is logical to assume that there is also the most harmful fish. And this is by no means a poisonous fugu fish. Telapia and pangasius, for example, often live and breed in simply terrible conditions. They exist normally and reproduce almost in wastewater where they feed on any waste from these waters. Just don't buy telapia of dubious origin.

It is more difficult with semi-finished fish products made from the meat of quite noble fish. To give it a fresh look, dyes are added to the fish meat, and for weight, it is pumped with substances that retain large amounts of water. I don’t even want to talk about chemicals that dissolve bones in fillets.

An unscrupulous manufacturer can make any fish harmful and dangerous.

The most expensive and cheapest fish

The most expensive fish is not found on store shelves, and not at all because no one can afford it. This rare species fish specially supplied only to restaurants. These include pufferfish, beluga and its caviar, kaluga and some other sturgeon. TO expensive types fish includes tuna. People have learned to raise salmon and sturgeon, so the price for them has become quite affordable for many.

The cheapest fish in stores are fresh frozen hake, pollock, halibut, haddock, cod and the like. River fish that is not exported can be cheaper than sea fish.

The price of fish is not directly related to the value of fish as a food product, its taste and usefulness. It depends more on demand on the global and local markets, the ability to satisfy this demand, and other factors not related to the quality of fish.

Bony (bony) fish

Small and large fish of the same species have approximately the same number of small bones, but in large fish the fork bones are larger and more noticeable. It is much easier to select bones from large fish. Almost all small river fish are very bony - these are perch, pike, bream, roach, crucian carp, etc.

Why don't people like bony fish? Bony fish, or as they say - “bony”, does not mean that it is tasteless. It can be very tasty, but picking small bones from the fish instead of eating it is a dubious pleasure. In addition, there is a risk that a small fish bone may get stuck in the throat. How to cook bony fish? What to do if a bone is stuck in your throat? We will answer these questions too.

Frying small fish without bones

Heat treatment of fish softens fish bones. Vegetable oil, unlike water, heats up significantly above 100 degrees. Under the influence of this temperature, small bones in boiling oil almost completely dissolve. It turns out to be fish without bones.

This way you can fry fish that are not very suitable for frying due to the large number of small bones - medium-sized roach, bream, silver bream, ide and similar fish. Crucian carp is traditionally fried, and transverse cuts on the sides, definitely during the frying process, rid the crucian carp of many fork bones.

See what it looks like:

If a fish bone gets stuck in your throat

A fish bone is stuck in my throat, what should I do? How to remove it at home?
Anyone who has ever eaten a bony fish knows that discomfort when a small fish bone gets stuck in the throat or tonsils. It becomes difficult to swallow, any swallowing movements cause pain. What to do if a bone is stuck in your throat? The main thing is not to panic.

In most cases, it is possible to get rid of a fish bone without outside help, independently, if it is a small and soft bone. There are several simple and relatively safe ways to get rid of such a bone in the throat.

We warn you: doctors do not welcome “amateur activity” and advise you to immediately consult a doctor. The fact is that the results of manipulations with a fish bone may turn out to be impossible to get rid of it and you will still need to go to the doctor. At the same time, the bone may become even more stuck in the throat, and even for a specialist it will be more difficult to remove it.

So, there are two options - we do everything at home, at our own risk, on our own, or we go for professional help.
All methods of getting rid of a fish bone at home are based on mechanical action on the fish bone by swallowing something that can drag the bone into the esophagus, or rinsing.

1. Bread pulp. The bread is partially chewed until moist and swallowed with a pronounced gulp. The bread can be soaked in fresh honey. This is perhaps the most effective way.
2. Enveloping products. Instead of bread, you can use thick drinks (yogurt, fermented baked milk, kefir), fresh flowing honey, or eat, for example, a banana. If the bone is caught slightly, this may help.
3. Vegetable oil. If you take a small sip vegetable oil, there is a possibility that the bone, under the influence of lubricant, will slip out and move towards its destination.

If, as a result of the actions taken, the bone from the fish does not go into the digestive tract, you should consult a doctor. This cannot be delayed, otherwise the inflammatory process will begin and the pain will intensify.

That's all. Let's end on a beautiful note: salmon, going to spawn, crosses the road.

Sterlet has long been known as the “royal fish”. And dishes from this fish always occupied a place of honor at royal and princely feasts. And Emperor Peter I at one time even created sterlet breeding in Peterhof.

Despite its small size, sterlet is one of the most commercial fish from the sturgeon family. It is very interesting for miners, since today it is quite common in all rivers of the European part of Russia and Siberia. It is worth noting that, unlike such well-known relatives as sturgeon, beluga and stellate sturgeon, sterlet is not anadromous, completely freshwater, river fish.

Another reason for the commercial popularity of sterlet is the good knowledge of this fish. modern science, we are well aware of its habits, which greatly simplifies the fishing of this fish.

Sterlet is smaller in size than other sturgeons. Her external distinctive features- an elongated narrow nose and long fringed antennae, as well as a bipartite lip and touching side scutes.

Sterlet in cooking

Sterlet is easy to prepare and turns out tasty no matter how it is processed. There are a large number of recipes for sterlet dishes that are easy to prepare. Since the fish itself is very tasty, the main thing when preparing it is to simply emphasize this taste with well-chosen additives. For example, sterlet in white wine with fried tomatoes and onions or baked in the oven for berry sauce, and also simply fried in breading.

Good side dishes for sterlet are fresh vegetables and boiled potatoes.

If we talk about dishes in which processed fish is used, then jelly, pies and fish soup made from sterlet are excellent in taste. Solyanka with sterlet also turns out great.

Note: Sterlet soup is best made with chicken broth. You can also add a little champagne to the dish.

Smoked sterlet is wonderful. This fish is served with white wine or fish broth sauce, lemon juice, dill and onion.

Boiled or smoked (smoked) sterlet will provide incredible taste to any salad. In a salad, sterlet goes well with boiled eggs, potatoes and salted or fresh cucumbers. Adding some sourness to sterlet dishes has a good effect. These can be sour fruits, such as apples, cranberries or, as already mentioned, lemon.

Season sterlet dishes well with sour cream or horseradish(possibly together).

Sterlet is rich in iodine and phosphorus. This fish contains a lot of calcium, vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acids - elements that improve the functioning of the heart, joints, brain and thyroid gland.

Benefits of sterlet

Like sturgeon, sterlet is a fish called red, but has white meat. And sterlet is called red fish to emphasize the value of this delicious fish. Accordingly, sterlet meat is rich in useful elements and has many beneficial properties.

Red fish, including sterlet, is rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids Omega-3 and Omega-6, which reduce cholesterol levels and improve intracellular metabolism. The value of these acids depends on their strengthening effect in favor of the cardiovascular system, on the one hand, and on the fact that our body cannot produce these substances on its own, on the other.

Note: Sterlet meat is a natural antidepressant, since the Omega-3 acids it contains promote the production of serotonin, which in turn has the effect of improving mood.

Sterlet helps prevent atherosclerosis and the occurrence of blood clots in blood vessels, reduces the likelihood of myocardial infarction, improves concentration and mental activity.

Valuable Omega-3 acids help strengthen joints, have a rejuvenating effect on body cells, and improve the appearance of skin and hair.

Eating sterlet up to two times a week reduces the risk of arrhythmia and even heart attack by 3 times!

Sterlet, like all sturgeon, contains a lot of fluoride, which ensures bone growth.

Sterlet meat contains protein high quality, which is quickly absorbed with maximum nutritional effect.

Sterlet contains a large amount of selenium, which protects the body from the effects of adverse environment, and iodine, which is needed for the functioning of the thyroid gland.

Composition of sterlet meat

in 100 grams of product

Nutritional value	Vitamins	Macronutrients	Microelements

European or common sterlet (Acipenser ruthenus) is a valuable commercial species of the sturgeon family with excellent gastronomic properties that justify giving it the title “royal fish”. This was facilitated by the regular presence of sterlet dishes at the meals of the famous sovereigns Ivan the Terrible and Peter I. For a long time, sterlet was banned from the table of non-privileged classes and peasants in Rus', which had a positive effect on the expansion of the taxon’s range and temporary population growth. In the 21st century, the species is endangered and is listed in the Russian and international Red Book.

Description of sterlet

The exterior of the fish is distinguished by a triangular body with a thin stalk and a sickle-shaped caudal fin with an elongated upper ray. Other features of the appearance of sterlet include:

• small cone-shaped head;
• elongated narrow nose;
• small lower mouth with bifid lip;
• small bulging eyes;
• fringed antennae;
• lack of scales;
• 5 longitudinal rows of bone scutes (bugs);
• gray dorsal fin moved far back;
• light yellowish-white abdomen;
• ash brown or dark brown color of the ridge.

To distinguish a sterlet from a sturgeon or other members of the family, it is enough to pay attention to the number and arrangement of bony scutes. Acipenser ruthenus is characterized by their tight closure on the back (13-17 pieces). The abdominal 13-15 plates, on the contrary, leave clearly visible gaps between each other. In the lateral line there are many small diamond-shaped bugs adjacent to each other (60-70 pieces), which also make it easy to identify the species among its relatives.

There is a not entirely correct opinion that a sterlet can be distinguished by its elongated, pointed nose. This statement only works on wild and spawn-bearing fish. Cultivated and fattened barren (incapable of reproducing) specimens may also have a shorter snout, like a sturgeon.

Size and sexual maturity

Despite the high-profile title of the king fish, the sterlet is in fact the smallest representative of the family. The standard weight of adult individuals varies between 1-2 kg with a height of 50-60 cm. Much less often, trophy specimens weighing 4-8 kg are found. Most heavy weight sterlet is 15-16 kg with a body length of 120-125 cm. But there is information about especially large one and a half meter individuals weighing 20 kilograms or more, caught in the Siberian wilderness on the taiga-covered banks of the Irtysh.

The relatively small species size determines the accelerated biological cycle of the sterlet (up to 30 years), which becomes sexually mature already in the third to eighth year of life. At the same time, the larger sturgeon, which lives up to 60-70 years, acquires the ability to reproduce only at the age of 8-20 years.

Lifestyle

Sterlet is a pronounced river dweller gravitate towards clean, deep, cool and fast water with plenty of oxygen. Even minor pollution of the environment with chemicals, household waste and elements of agricultural fertilizers can cause significant harm to livestock. Fish have a well-developed schooling instinct, so sterlets form small permanent groups of individuals of the same age, which regularly make short migrations over a distance of several kilometers in search of food. But in general, the sterlet leads a sedentary lifestyle and in nature never moves away from its place of birth. The only exceptions were a few semi-anadromous forms inhabiting the Caspian basin and the Kamchatka River. These fish spend a lot of time on the food-rich, desalinated sea shelf, and to procreate they make long journeys upstream.

Throughout the daylight hours, the sterlet stays at a depth near the bottom and only at dusk moves to shallow water to feed. Food activity persists throughout the warm season and until mid-autumn. In October, sturgeon begin to gather in large schools and migrate to deep sections of the river where wintering pits are located. Thanks to the state of suspended animation, which slows down life processes in the body, fish are able to wait until spring without food and significant weight loss.

What does a sterlet eat?

Small sturgeons are typical benthophages that feed on living organisms living on the bottom of the reservoir. The basis of the sterlet's diet is:

• small crustaceans - daphnia, brine shrimp, amphipods, cyclops, shieldfish;
• larvae - mosquito (bloodworm), dragonfly (naiad), hoverfly, horsefly, soldier fly, honeydew, caddisfly;
• small molluscs – balls, mussels, shutters, coils, lithoglyphs, zebra mussels;
• worms, tubifex, beetles, leeches, water scorpions, bedbugs, paddlefish, smoothies, etc.

During the season of mass emergence of insects, the fish changes its habits, rises to the very surface, turns over on its back and greedily collects droplets, midges, and butterflies that have fallen into the water.

Where is sterlet found in Russia

The original habitat of the species is the regions of the Russian Federation belonging to Eastern Europe and Western Siberia, including the Yenisei waters. But thanks to increased acclimatization by humans, the sterlet fish now inhabits many rivers in the basins of the Azov, Caspian, Black, Kara, Baltic, Barents and White seas. It is found in the Urals, Ob, Irtysh, Volga, Don, Klyazma, Kama, Vyatka, Dnieper, Dniester, Northern Dvina, Kamchatka, Angara.

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Attempts are regularly made to introduce the taxon into Lakes Ladoga and Onega, Amur, Pechora, Neman and other “free rivers”. But due to the climate and food supply, sterlet does not take root there well and often cannot reproduce on its own.

Related species

Despite the fairly large diversity of representatives of the family (dozens of types of sturgeon, stellate sturgeon, thorn, kaluga), all species are biologically very close and allow the formation of unique hybrids.

In 1952, a bester was bred in the USSR, whose name consists of the first syllables of the name of the “parents” - the largest generic taxon of Beluga (Huso huso) and the smallest - Sterlet.

This fish is characterized by tolerance to salt water (up to 18%) and a sharp contrast between the gray-brown or brown back and light belly. The original hybrid incorporated the accelerated growth of beluga and the rapid maturation of sterlet. The maximum weight of a bester reaches 28-30 kg with a body length of 170-180 cm. But these figures can be doubled subject to further crossing with the pure form of Huso huso - the beluga bester. In the basins of the Irtysh, Ob, Yenisei, Angara, Sayano-Shushenskoye and Krasnoyarsk reservoirs, a special subspecies of sturgeon lives - the Siberian sterlet (Acipenser ruthenus marsiglii). This taxon differs from the basic form in late maturation, lighter color and the ability to gain weight over 20 kg.

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Reproduction

The timing of sterlet spawning depends on geographical features and the rate of heating of water to a temperature of +10-15°C. In various regions of Russia this is an impressive time period from April to June inclusive. As spawning grounds, the fish chooses deep-water flowing areas (7-20 meters) with a hard bottom substrate (stone, pebbles, snags), where it lays 25-150 thousand black eggs with a diameter of 2-3 mm. Thanks to a special adhesive coating, the masonry is securely attached to any surface and is not carried away by the current.

The incubation period of the larvae is 6-10 days. After hatching from the eggs, they feed on reserves for another 1-2 weeks. yolk sac. Once the fry swims, they form schools and start feeding intensively on zooplankton and small benthic organisms. The young grow quite quickly; by the beginning of the cold season, the fingerlings reach 18-20 cm in length, and by the end of the second year of life - 25-30 cm. Young sexually mature females, 7-10 years old, spawn every year. As they grow older, the spawning schedule changes dramatically and usually amounts to one spawning trip every 2-4 years. Such biological pauses often harm the fish; many females manage to become too fat and lose their ability to reproduce.

Artificial breeding and cultivation

Sterlet aquaculture is widely developed in special cage farms, which consist of a number of pools or are located in open and enclosed reservoirs. The main condition for the successful keeping of sturgeon is good aeration, which makes it possible to saturate the water with oxygen to a level of 5 mg/l or more. It is necessary to maintain optimal temperature regime environment +18-24°C, since in very cool water bodies (below +1-2°C) fish begin to die en masse.

Advanced cage farms use special equipment that allows not only to settle, enrich with oxygen, disinfect and, if necessary, heat water, but also to organize its mechanical and biological treatment for reuse and cost reduction. The greatest difficulties in artificial breeding of sterlet are associated with accustoming the fish to feeding on compound feed. With the correct organization of the process, in just 9-10 months you can “translate” a tiny fry weighing 5-7 g into a sought-after product category with a net weight of 400-500 g.

Catching sterlet

Innate unpretentiousness allows the species to successfully settle not only in rivers, but also in clean and deep flowing lakes, reservoirs and even large ponds with a hard, sandy or moderately silted bottom.

The new tackle for catching sterlet is a donka (0.3-0.35 mm), equipped with removable leashes of 20-30 cm, medium hooks with a long shank and a streamlined sinker weighing 30-80 g. They are used as bait big worms(crawl, dung, earthen, meadow, iron ore), shellfish or crayfish meat, piece of fish, dragonfly or butterfly, whitebait.

Before going to the river to catch sterlet, you will have to purchase a one-time license, which is valid for two days and allows you to fish from 6 am to 11 pm, excluding night time. The document states that the maximum permissible catch is 10 specimens with a length of at least 30 cm and a weight of 250 g. You can use hooks (up to 5 pieces) or fixed networks(up to 2 pieces). It is also possible to purchase a monthly license, which gives the right to catch 100 sturgeon specimens.

Nutritional value

Sterlet fish has a pleasant sweetish taste, complete absence bonyness and culinary versatility that allows the use of many different cooking techniques. Fish is used to make fish soup, balyk, aspic, shish kebab, grilled fish, pie filling, and solyanka. Sterlet meat lends itself well to salting, smoking, boiling, baking, frying, and steaming. Caviar, which is often dark gray in color, but can also be a rich black hue, is famous for its excellent gastronomic qualities.

The average calorie content of sterlet is 88-90 kcal per 100 g, which allows it to be classified as a dietary product. Regular consumption of fish helps normalize metabolism, prevent vascular diseases, reduce the risk of atherosclerosis and improve mood due to the significant inclusion of serotonin.
Sterlet also contains a number of other substances beneficial to the body:

• vitamins of group B, PP, D, E, A;
• fluorine, chromium, zinc;
• sulfur, molybdenum, nickel;
• calcium, iodine, selenium;
• polyunsaturated fatty acids (Omega-3 and Omega-6);
• easily digestible proteins.

Sterlet dishes destroy bad cholesterol, strengthen bones and joints, prevent the development of cancer, and improve the condition of nails, skin and hair.

How to cook a whole sturgeon or sterlet
SO THAT THE FISH IS PERFECT

How to cook a whole sturgeon or sterlet

Sturgeon is a white delicious meat that allows you to treat it as you please: it is good to smoke, salt, fry, boil and bake. But besides these advantages, the sturgeon has one more thing - an amazing primitive appearance, which is no less striking than its tender flesh: a long nose, mustache, strange spines and bugs. That is why sturgeon, sterlet and other belugas have long graced both large and small feasts.

How to cook a whole sturgeon or sterlet so that the fish does New Year's table as festive as possible, we learned from two chefs who do this very often.

The chef of the St. Daniel's Monastery, Oleg Olkhov, and the chef of the Volna restaurant, Alexander Popov, tell the story.

Oleg Olkhov, chef of the St. Danilov Monastery:

“If you come to a large chain store and see that sturgeon is sold there, then know that it can be either sturgeon, sterlet or bester - a cross between beluga and sterlet. But these are all one sturgeon family. All these fish have the same structure - and they are also processed in the same way. Only the sterlet is smaller than the sturgeon; the average adult weighs on average up to 2.5 kilograms and reaches 60 centimeters in length. However, this is the kind of fish we need, no more: for a fish to fit in an average oven, it must weigh one and a half to two kilograms.

Both sturgeon and sterlet are covered on the outside with a layer of mucus, which is very difficult to remove - this is thick gray-black snot. If you try to simply wash away the mucus, you will not succeed. Therefore, it is best to first pour boiling water over the fish, and then walk over it with a sponge with an abrasive surface. However, there are people who like to cook sterlet fish soup with mucus and believe that it gives the main flavor to the soup.

Most often, sturgeon and sterlet are sold gutted, because, of course, if it is a mature fish, it may contain black caviar and no one will want to part with it for the price of the fish. If the fish is not gutted, it’s okay: gutting sturgeon is easy, everything is the same as with any other fish.

The viziga is removed as follows: a longitudinal incision about five centimeters long is made on the side of the gutted belly. The main thing is to pick up the vizig in this section (it is immediately visible: a white cartilaginous tourniquet) and pull out a small segment of it. Pierce the vizig with a fork, pick it up and pull it out of the chord, like a worm, very carefully, smoothly and slowly.

Then the belly of the fish will need to be cleaned of films and amber-colored fatty layers. Some fans add this fat, say, to the ear, but not everyone likes the rather pungent taste and smell of sturgeon fat.

It will not be possible to open the gills: the sturgeon has a very hard skull - and they are located like a shark. But it only seems difficult to remove them; in fact, everything is simple: cut and pull out.

The surface of the sturgeon is not covered with scales, but with bone growths called bugs. These bugs are something like an exoskeleton, because the sturgeon also has no bones: only a notochord inside and five rows of bone growths-bugs outside. The bugs follow each other without touching: one chain goes along the ridge and two on the sides near the belly. When cut, they look like a five-pointed star. In addition to the five rows of bugs, the sturgeon’s skin also contains small bone growths: if you touch the fish from above, it seems as if you are rubbing sandpaper. What to do with these bugs? If it is a large sturgeon, then they need to be cut off. And if it is a small sterlet, you need to pour boiling water over it and scrape off the bugs with a knife, they easily bounce off. But you need to be careful with the knife: do not leave cuts on the skin, because it can then peel off unsightly.

We cleaned off the mucus, removed the gills and vizig, cut off or washed off the bugs: this completed the preparation of the fish. Next, dry the sturgeon with a paper or cloth towel. Then salt and pepper - outside and inside. Keep in mind: if you have a thick sturgeon, then even if you cover it with a thick layer of salt, it will still not be salted - you will have to first salt it in the solution for several days.

I’ll tell you about two ways to bake whole sturgeon or sterlet. First: just brush the fish with oil and bake until done. The second way is more interesting and elegant - when it is baked, poured with champagne or white wine.

They do it like this. Place sturgeon or sterlet in a deep tray. You can put onions, herbs and white roots - parsley, celery, parsnips - into the belly of the fish. Parsley root is preferable. Fennel goes especially well with sturgeon. Since we will not eat these roots and we only need them to give a certain flavor to the sturgeon and the broth in which it will be partially contained, you can add them by eye: one or two roots. But if you have celery root - and it is huge, then half is enough: just cut into large bars and put it in your belly. With fennel it’s a little different - you can put it inside and cover the outside of the sturgeon with it. After all this, the fish must be poured with a bottle of champagne or a bottle of dry white wine, so that it is one third or half covered with wine. You can put it there, in the wine. onions or leeks, carrots, turnips, allspice and bay leaves. Maybe a little fresh ginger. This mixture of wine, white roots, vegetables and herbs flavors the fish, and then you can use the remaining stock base to make a sauce. You won’t recognize the difference between champagne and just white wine in the taste of the fish, but based on champagne you can then make a champagne sauce, which really turns out more interesting than a sauce made from just dry white wine.

Place the sturgeon in an oven preheated to 170 degrees and baste with wine mixed with the released fish juice every 5-10 minutes. Sterlet should be baked for about 20 minutes, sturgeon is denser, it will take a little more time, maybe 25 minutes. I advise keeping the fish in the oven longer - after 20 minutes in the oven it begins to boil and move off the frame. (Although this does not affect the taste.)

Sturgeon is good to serve with fresh or boiled vegetables, rice, or buckwheat porridge. Or you can top it with boiled crayfish, especially if you are going to serve the fish on a long elongated stainless steel dish. Once upon a time, sturgeon was sprinkled with black caviar on top.

The remaining broth can be evaporated, cream added to it by two-thirds, evaporated again until thickened - and that’s it, the sauce is ready. They can either be poured over the top of the fish or served separately.”

How to choose fish and not make a mistake

Sturgeon (beluga, sturgeon, stellate sturgeon, sterlet, etc.) are expensive fish, so sometimes they can “stale” on the counter. So it is best to buy live sterlet or small sturgeon. Or take the simpler route - buy frozen fish. But please note that at temperatures from 0° to -2°C, frozen fish must be sold within 24 hours.

Of all sturgeon, stellate sturgeon has the most tender, least fatty (up to 11% fat content) and fibrous meat. Sturgeon, whose meat can be compared in taste to veal, is the second most “fat” (11-15% fat content). This is followed by sterlet with tender and aromatic meat (up to 31% fat). And the beluga, the largest of the sturgeons, closes this honorable list - it contains up to 33% fat.

How to cook stellate sturgeon

The stellate sturgeon is distinguished from other sturgeon by its unusually long nose, which has the shape of a dagger and gives it a very unusual appearance. The fish is sold frozen, hot and cold smoked, and in the form of balyk. It is good to steam it. And as a side dish for steamed stellate sturgeon, we suggest serving mushroom fricassee or vegetables stewed in wine, broth or cream. Stellate sturgeon accepts fruit sauces. As an option - kiwi sauce prepared in a steam bath. Rub the kiwi through a sieve, freeing the pulp from the seeds, add a few drops of Tabasco and a little butter. Evaporate and mix thoroughly.

Sturgeon dishes

Sturgeon, or, as it is also called, “river pig,” according to many chefs, is good in almost any form. It can be stewed in large pieces or even whole with vegetables, used boiled in salads and cold soups, baked in the oven in foil, or simmered in fish broth with dry white wine. The traditional Russian version - sturgeon is poached in a concentrated broth with wine vinegar and a large amount of herbs and spices, then kept for two days and served cold.

Stewed sturgeon is especially tasty with spicy vegetables, capers and pickles. Pieces of fish can be marinated a little in lemon juice. Cut carrots, celery tubers, small champignons, pickles and pitted olives into small cubes. Boil muscat wine, such as Madeira, cucumber pickle and some water with bay leaf and chopped parsley. Rinse the fish and simmer in wine broth for 20-25 minutes. Then remove the sturgeon and keep warm. Stew carrots and celery in butter, add olives, cucumbers, mushrooms, mix everything and simmer a little more. Strain the fish broth through a sieve, add capers and cook for 5 minutes. Mash a piece of butter in flour, combine with the broth and, stirring, cook until thickened. Pour the resulting sauce over the fish and serve with spicy vegetables.

Portioned pieces and fillets of sturgeon can be fried in a frying pan, grilled or in batter. The fillet can also be marinated and served cold - in this way we will pay tribute to Mediterranean traditions. To do this, the fish must be kept for a day in a mixture of white wine, 7% apple cider vinegar, coriander and white pepper, then washed and cut into thin slices.

Sturgeon also makes excellent minced meat, which can be used for making cutlets and filling ravioli. Add minced chicken, cream, chopped parsley root and a little torn Chinese lettuce to the sturgeon chopped in a blender.

Fennel, ginger, capers, garlic, marjoram, orange zest, parsley, lemon and pepper are suitable seasonings for sturgeon.

What to cook from sterlet

According to chefs, sterlet is best suited for aspic, fish soup, as a filling for kulebyak and pies, it can be baked and spit-roasted. At the same time, if you need sterlet in the form of fillets, then after cutting it should be frozen - this makes it easier to work with. And the skin is easier to remove, and the bones are more convenient to remove.

For a variation on the fish soup theme, you need to remove the skin from the fish. Boil the sterlet over low heat, fry the carrots and onions until dark golden brown, remove seeds from the blanched tomato and add to the fish along with other vegetables. Roots are also appropriate in this soup - celery, for example. At the very end, you can add 50 g of vodka and red hot pepper to 3 liters of fish soup.

Keep in mind that sterlet meat is very tender, so a good dish can only be prepared from live or chilled fish; frozen fish is incomparably worse in taste. By the way, there is a hybrid of sterlet and beluga - bester. This fish is bred in ponds and is sold only fresh.

Balyk and beluga cutlets

Beluga meat makes the best balyks and excellent cutlets; in addition, it can be stewed and served with a sauce of mushrooms, olives, lemon and capers. Beluga meat is somewhat rough in taste compared to the meat of other sturgeons, but beluga caviar is the highest quality and most expensive.

You can make the following sauce from it: 4 tbsp. l. concentrated fish broth, 1 tsp. blanched and seeded tomato, cut into small cubes, mix 10 g of grated butter in a heat-resistant bowl and heat without bringing to a boil. The mass should become homogeneous. At the very end add 1 tsp. caviar, stir and remove from heat.

Break up and have no regrets

So, despite the fact that all of the above fish belong to the same family, each species requires its own approach and a decent environment. But there are still general rules for working with sturgeon. These are the cutting rules. And one more thing. The added beauty of all sturgeon is that the fish is 100% usable. The bone skeleton, cartilage and head are used for making broth and jellies, vizigu is used as a component of pickles and hodgepodges, for filling pies, kulebyak and pies, and liver and milk are used for pates.

Keep in mind that milk is a perishable product, so it should only be used on very fresh fish.

After thawing - if necessary - you should first separate the head with pectoral fins. Then the dorsal bugs (cartilage), vizig (dorsal notochord) and tail are separated. To remove “bugs” there is one very simple but effective technique. It is recommended to sear the fish on the cooking surface of the stove. The “bug” should hiss—after that, removing it will not be difficult. This is followed by stratification: the fish is placed back up and cut from head to tail.

The resulting halves have their own culinary name - “links”. Then the entrails are removed, and the links, depending on the size of the fish and the cooking needs, are cut into pieces. Thus, a link of beluga, the largest fish, is usually cut into two or three parts lengthwise, and then crosswise into pieces 40-50 cm long. Many cooks recommend scalding the links. This process, firstly, facilitates the removal of bone plates, and secondly, the pieces prepared in this way will not be deformed during the main heat treatment.

Biological differences between sterlet and sturgeon

In addition to belonging to various classes, there are a number of biological features sturgeon and sterlet, which help to understand the difference between these two representatives of the same genus.

1.Size of the individual. Most fish of the sturgeon family are impressive in size (up to 6 meters in length) and gain a lot of weight (more than 100 kilograms). Sterlet is an exception in this series. The length of an adult fish rarely exceeds 125 centimeters, and the maximum weight is 6 kilograms.

2.Shape and size of the head. You can distinguish a sturgeon by its large and wide head and short nose. The sterlet's head is small, and its nose is very long and pointed, with a mustache in the form of a fringe. Such differences can be seen even in photographs of these sturgeon representatives.

3.Color and body structure. The color of sturgeon fish can range from light gray to black, and there is practically no difference in the color of sterlet and sturgeon. But the number of lateral bony scutes (bugs) that both sturgeon and sterlet have will help to accurately determine which class the individual belongs to. The sturgeon can have up to 70 bugs, while the sterlet has 10-15 fewer scutes.

Moreover, all sturgeons belong to one of the most ancient zoological branches, which is called cartilaginous. Their main difference from other known species of fish is the absence of a bony spine, the function of which is performed by a cartilaginous chord. Fry of any type of fish have a similar structure until their skeletal system becomes stronger.

Habitat and gastronomic properties

These are two classes of sturgeon fish that are similar in appearance, but significantly different in their habitat and feeding method. Sterlet prefers to lead a sedentary lifestyle in the bottom part of clean flowing water bodies, feeding on larvae, zooplankton and small fish. The sturgeon can migrate long distances; during the spawning period it goes to sea; its food is based on fish, aquatic worms, crustaceans and shrimp. Therefore, the taste properties of sterlet and sturgeon meat have certain differences. A true gourmet can easily distinguish them by taste.

1. Gastronomic properties. The main taste differences between these representatives of the sturgeon family are that sterlet meat is very tender and quite fatty (up to 30% fat). Sturgeon has a denser and more fibrous meat structure, and its fat content exceeds 15%.
2. Caviar. The most valuable product that sterlet and sturgeon provide is caviar of the highest quality, and it can be distinguished by size and color. Sterlet caviar is smaller, dark, very rich in color. Sturgeon caviar is much larger and has a greenish tint.

The difference between sterlet and sturgeon is quite noticeable, despite the fact that visually they have certain similarities. But at the same time, both representatives of sturgeon are considered not only a very expensive and delicious type of fish, but also a product that contains a large amount of substances and microelements useful for the human body.

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It has a typical appearance for the sturgeon family: a fusiform body with five rows of bony bugs, an elongated snout, a lower retractable mouth and a heterocercal (asymmetrical) caudal fin. The skull is cartilaginous; the head has well-developed integumentary ossifications.

On the snout below, in front of the mouth opening, there are 4 antennae. In sterlet they are fringed, which distinguishes it from other species of the sturgeon family. Another defining feature is the number of bugs in the lateral row. The sterlet has more than 50 of them. Based on the length of the rostrum (the front part of the head), long-snouted and blunt-snouted forms of sterlet are distinguished. The debate about whether these forms are independent groups or reflect morphological variability in a single population is ongoing in scientific literature for more than a hundred years.

Sexual dimorphism in sterlet is weakly expressed. The easiest way to determine the sex of fish is before spawning. During the breeding season, both males and females acquire “nuptial plumage” in the form of a whitish coating on the head. In males, as a rule, the “nuptial plumage” is more pronounced. Sometimes it is so intense that the integumentary ossifications turn white not only on the head, but also on the entire body, and the fish looks covered with a pearly rash. Egged females can be quite easily distinguished by their swollen abdomen. The color of the back and sides of the sterlet is usually uniform, depending on the season, the color of the soil and the turbidity of the water. Gray-brown shades usually predominate. The pectoral fins are large with light edging. The color of the ventral side of the body is usually white or yellow, but sometimes there are individuals with a spotted belly color.

The sterlet, which lives east of the Ural Range, is classified as a special subspecies - the Siberian sterlet, Acipenser ruthenus marsiglii Brandt, 1833. Lifestyle in nature Sterlet is a bottom-dwelling schooling river fish. It can live in lakes and ponds, but never reproduces. There are known cases of catching sterlet in the brackish water of the Caspian and Azov seas. In rivers it prefers deep places with strong currents. After river regulation, sterlet, like other rheophilic fish species, leaves the lake part of the formed reservoir and stays mainly outside the backwater zone, in areas that maintain the river regime. In autumn, sterlet lies at the bottom of the river, in holes, and becomes covered with mucus. In winter, the sterlet does not eat anything and by spring it loses weight. During the rest of the year, sterlet food consists of aquatic insect larvae: midges, bell mosquitoes, and caddis flies. During the mass flight of mayflies, she feeds only on them for several days. In this case, the sterlet rises to the surface of the water and floats belly up, collecting fallen insects from the surface. Crustaceans and molluscs play a lesser role in its diet. On occasion, a large sterlet can grab an unwary fish. Sterlet is a big fan of caviar, and is considered an undesirable guest on the spawning grounds of migratory sturgeon species.

The average weight of sterlet is 1.5-3 kg. Having reached this weight, she practically stops growing. However, there are outstanding specimens whose sizes significantly exceed the average. Sterlet weighing 6-8 kg, although rare, is still not a unique phenomenon. Ancient literature mentions the capture of 16-20 kg fish. The lifespan of a sterlet is about 30 years.

Sturgeons quite often hybridize into natural conditions. Hybrids are of theoretical interest and as objects of commercial cultivation. It is believed that hybrids between low-chromosomal species (sterlet, stellate sturgeon, thorn, beluga) and between multi-chromosomal species (Russian, Siberian, Persian, Adriatic sturgeon, Kaluga) species are fertile, and hybrids between low- and multi-chromosomal species are sterile. The introduction of hybrids into water bodies where pure sturgeon species live and breed is undesirable, since as a result of crossings, pure sturgeon lines may be lost. Reproduction The age of sexual maturation of the sterlet is greatly extended. The first sexually mature individuals begin to appear at 3-5 years of age. Males mature slightly earlier than females. Sterlet breeds in the spring, usually during high water. Experiments at a fish hatchery showed that sterlet eggs develop without disturbances at water temperatures from 6 to 20 °C. A similar range of spawning temperatures (8–20 °C) is observed in natural conditions, however, the greatest intensity of reproduction occurs at 10–15 °C. Spawning grounds can be channel or flood, but always with fast current. The soil on them can be pebbly, sandy-rocky or gristly. At spawning sites, males usually predominate over females. Females spawn eggs at once, over several hours. However, due to the approach of new fish, the total breeding period can last more than a month. This allows sterlet to use the same spawning grounds up to 6-7 times per season. Sterlet caviar is sticky and attaches quite firmly to pebbles, stones and other underwater objects. Duration of embryonic development, depending on temperature conditions, is 4-10 days.

Males typically spawn annually. Females can skip a year or more. The absolute fecundity of sterlet, depending on the size of the spawners, varies widely (from 3 to 140 thousand or more eggs), the relative fecundity is less variable and is about 20-30 thousand eggs per kilogram of fish weight. One gram of flowing sterlet caviar contains about 120 eggs. No one has ever succeeded in breeding sterlet in an aquarium. Even if the farmed fish collects eggs, it will be impossible to obtain them without organizing the cooling of the fish (artificial wintering) and hormonal stimulation. The same can be said about the reproduction of sterlet in various kinds of decorative reservoirs in the open air, which have become widespread in recent years.

Sterlet inhabits the rivers of the Black, Azov, Caspian, White and Kara Seas. Eastern border distribution - the Yenisei River. Sterlet has long attracted the attention of specialists as an object of acclimatization. According to literary sources, it was transplanted to the Neva as early as 1763. There is information about numerous sterlet transplants in the 19th century within Russia and exported abroad. Sterlet has been successfully acclimatized in the rivers Onega (White Sea basin), Pechora (Barents Sea basin) and Shuya (Lake Onega basin). Attempts to introduce sterlet into the Western Dvina and Amur were less successful. In recent years, sterlet has been spreading in large numbers into the Kuban River basin.

Environmental certificate.

Sterlet is very sensitive to lack of oxygen. When the oxygen content in water drops to 3.5 mg/l, the sterlet leaves the wintering pits and migrates to large quantities to places with more favorable oxygen conditions. Mature females suffer from death the worst. Sterlet is quite sensitive to water quality. In polluted rivers its reserves are in depressed state. Conversely, if the water becomes cleaner, this immediately leads to an increase in numbers, which was noted, in particular, in the Kama basin after the reduction of industrial production and harmful discharges in the 1990s. Some populations of sterlet are listed in the regional “Red Books” and in the “Red Book of Russia”. The species is included in the IUCN Red List.

“If you come to a large chain store and see that sturgeon is sold there, then know that it can be either sturgeon, sterlet or bester - a cross between beluga and sterlet. But these are all one sturgeon family. All these fish have the same structure - and they are also processed in the same way. Only the sterlet is smaller than the sturgeon; the average adult weighs on average up to 2.5 kilograms and reaches 60 centimeters in length. However, this is the kind of fish we need, no more: for a fish to fit in an average oven, it must weigh one and a half to two kilograms.

Both sturgeon and sterlet are covered on the outside with a layer of mucus, which is very difficult to remove - this is thick gray-black snot. If you try to simply wash away the mucus, you will not succeed. Therefore, it is best to first pour boiling water over the fish, and then walk over it with a sponge with an abrasive surface. However, there are people who like to cook sterlet fish soup with mucus and believe that it gives the main flavor to the soup.

Most often, sturgeon and sterlet are sold gutted, because, of course, if it is a mature fish, it may contain black caviar and no one will want to part with it for the price of the fish. If the fish is not gutted, it’s okay: gutting sturgeon is easy, everything is the same as with any other fish.

The viziga is removed as follows: a longitudinal incision about five centimeters long is made on the side of the gutted belly. The main thing is to pick up the vizig in this section (it is immediately visible: a white cartilaginous tourniquet) and pull out a small segment of it. Pierce the vizig with a fork, pick it up and pull it out of the chord, like a worm, very carefully, smoothly and slowly.

Then the belly of the fish will need to be cleaned of films and amber-colored fatty layers. Some fans add this fat, say, to the ear, but not everyone likes the rather pungent taste and smell of sturgeon fat.

It will not be possible to open the gills: the sturgeon has a very hard skull - and they are located like a shark. But it only seems difficult to remove them; in fact, everything is simple: cut and pull out.

The surface of the sturgeon is not covered with scales, but with bone growths called bugs. These bugs are something like an exoskeleton, because the sturgeon also has no bones: only a notochord inside and five rows of bone growths-bugs outside. The bugs follow each other without touching: one chain goes along the ridge and two on the sides near the belly. When cut, they look like a five-pointed star. In addition to the five rows of bugs, the sturgeon’s skin also contains small bone growths: if you touch the fish from above, it seems as if you are rubbing sandpaper. What to do with these bugs? If it is a large sturgeon, then they need to be cut off. And if it is a small sterlet, you need to pour boiling water over it and scrape off the bugs with a knife, they easily bounce off. But you need to be careful with the knife: do not leave cuts on the skin, because it can then peel off unsightly.

We cleaned off the mucus, removed the gills and vizig, cut off or washed off the bugs: this completed the preparation of the fish. Next, dry the sturgeon with a paper or cloth towel. Then salt and pepper - outside and inside. Keep in mind: if you have a thick sturgeon, then even if you cover it with a thick layer of salt, it will still not be salted - you will have to first salt it in the solution for several days.

I’ll tell you about two ways to bake whole sturgeon or sterlet. First: just brush the fish with oil and bake until done. The second way is more interesting and elegant - when it is baked, poured with champagne or white wine.

They do it like this. Place sturgeon or sterlet in a deep tray. You can put onions, herbs and white roots - parsley, celery, parsnips - into the belly of the fish. Parsley root is preferable. Fennel goes especially well with sturgeon. Since we will not eat these roots and we only need them to give a certain flavor to the sturgeon and the broth in which it will be partially contained, you can add them by eye: one or two roots. But if you have celery root - and it is huge, then half is enough: just cut into large bars and put it in your belly. With fennel it’s a little different - you can put it inside and cover the outside of the sturgeon with it. After all this, the fish must be poured with a bottle of champagne or a bottle of dry white wine, so that it is one third or half covered with wine. There, in the wine, you can put onions or leeks, carrots, turnips, allspice and bay leaves. Maybe a little fresh ginger. This mixture of wine, white roots, vegetables and herbs flavors the fish, and then you can use the remaining stock base to make a sauce. You won’t recognize the difference between champagne and just white wine in the taste of the fish, but based on champagne you can then make a champagne sauce, which really turns out more interesting than a sauce made from just dry white wine.

Place the sturgeon in an oven preheated to 170 degrees and baste with wine mixed with the released fish juice every 5-10 minutes. Sterlet should be baked for about 20 minutes, sturgeon is denser, it will take a little more time, maybe 25 minutes. I advise keeping the fish in the oven longer - after 20 minutes in the oven it begins to boil and move off the frame. (Although this does not affect the taste.)

Sturgeon is good to serve with fresh or boiled vegetables, rice, or buckwheat porridge. Or you can top it with boiled crayfish, especially if you are going to serve the fish on a long elongated stainless steel dish. Once upon a time, sturgeon was sprinkled with black caviar on top.

The remaining broth can be evaporated, cream added to it by two-thirds, evaporated again until thickened - and that’s it, the sauce is ready. They can either be poured over the top of the fish or served separately.”

Alexander Popov, chef of the Volna restaurant:

“When you buy fish, it is important to inspect it first - the eyes should not be cloudy, the gills should be bright red. Dark gills indicate that the fish has been lying around for a long time and is probably already spoiled. In addition, if a fish lies gutted on ice, this can often mean that it died a natural death and now they want to quickly sell it.

Bring the sturgeon home, gut it and remove the gills. Next you need to draw out the vizig. You can do this through the incised cartilage using tweezers, a fork or pliers; When pulling, try not to tear it, do not pull too hard - otherwise you will have to rip the entire fish from head to tail. If there are five centimeters of vizigi left in the tail, it’s okay.

The last stage of preparation - slightly cut the skin from the tail along the ridge to the upper bug at the junction of the body and head sharp knife or scissors.

Once the fish has been prepared, it can be marinated for a short time. Pour the juice of half a lemon or dry white wine over it, put 20 grams of dill branches inside, which you first crush a little with a masher, coat with salt and pepper and leave it all for 40 minutes.

Then the marinated sturgeon can be baked. First, place foil on a baking sheet, then parchment, and then fish on top. If the sturgeon is large and does not fit into the oven, roll it into a ring, tucking the tail into the head. Next to the fish you can put coarsely chopped onions, half a carrot and a clove of garlic. You can pour wine over the sturgeon and cover the top with foil - but not tightly, not wrap it in foil, but cover it, as it were, pinching the bottom and top layers of foil on the sides so that air remains inside. In this form, bake the sturgeon at a temperature of 190–200 degrees in a preheated oven for 15 minutes. During these 15 minutes, the fish will be steamed with white wine and filled with vegetables. Then unfold it, separate it from the paper and foil, brush with melted butter. butter, then put it back in the oven for 10 minutes, without covering it with anything, so that it gets colored.

When the sturgeon is cooked, use a fork or tweezers to slightly pick up the skin in the place where it is cut and pull - the skin can be easily removed with a stocking. And then it will be possible to serve sturgeon without skin on the table - but with a ridge and recognizable five rows of thorns-bugs for beauty.

Sturgeon can be served with rice and vegetables, or with boiled potatoes, dill and butter, or you can cook thin noodles, the ones rolled into balls and called “angel hair.” Boil these noodles well in water, to which the juice from one medium beet is added so that the paste is pink.

In addition, sturgeon can be stuffed. At first everything is the same: clean and marinate, and then you need to do the following. Take 250 grams of pike perch, 100 grams of salmon, 100 grams of onions sautéed in butter and a handful of pistachios. Pass all this through a meat grinder, add one egg and 50 to 100 grams of cream. Season the fish with this minced meat. Half a kilogram is enough, don’t take more, otherwise the sturgeon will tear apart. It is better to cook such stuffed fish in a wide pan, wrapped in film and rolled into a ring. Cook for an hour until the fish is completely covered with water. Only here during cooking there is important nuances: you need to put the fish in a boiling broth, where onions, carrots, garlic, parsley are already boiled, but then, when the fish is in the broth, this water should not boil: the temperature should not be lower than 80 and not higher than 90 degrees.”