We clean the perch quickly, easily and without scattering scales

All fishermen and river fish lovers know how difficult it is to clean a perch. When you try to do this, the scales scatter wildly, sticking to the walls, furniture, semi. In this regard, a more effective way is to prepare a perch carcass without skin. This method allows you to cut the fish for cooking faster, completely removing all the prickly bones and without staining anything around it.

Perch cleaning process

For convenient and quick cleaning, you must use a sharp knife.

Its shape and size are completely unimportant, since mainly only its tip will cut, the main thing is that it is comfortable. The first movement is to make a shallow cut between the head and the dorsal fin until the ridge is cut with a characteristic click.

Next, you need to take the perch in your palm from the stomach side and place its head towards you. Then, plunging the tip of the knife, you need to make 2 cuts in its skin from the cut on the neck to the end of the dorsal fin. They are made on both sides of the dorsal fin line. Each cut is performed in one movement.For convenience, the knife should be held by the blade so that only its tip protrudes by 5-10 mm, this will prevent you from cutting deeply.

Then, from the side of the transverse cut on the neck, you need to pry the tip of the skin with scales with a knife and tear it off towards the stomach. This exposes both sides. The skin is torn off from the neck to the tail, and only the belly remains.

Next, holding the skinned carcass, you need to pull the trimmed head down. With this movement you will be able to rip off the head and torn skin and scales from the carcass. As a result, fillets with fins will remain in the river. The insides will come off along with the skin.


After this, you need to again take the perch in your palm with the neck facing you and pinch the dorsal fin from the tail side between the tip of the knife and the thumb. Then, by moving towards itself, it breaks out of the carcass along with the bones. The anal fin is also torn off.

The finished carcass is rinsed and set aside. Then you need to check the skin that has been torn off the head, since caviar may remain on it. You can also rip the gills out of the head directly with your fingers. They will also pull the offal with them. The remaining skin and head are rinsed and can be used for fat when preparing fish soup.

After cleaning, a little fat remains on them, so they will make your fish soup more rich. Naturally, after cooking, the skins can be thrown away, and only the broth and carcasses can be eaten. If you plan to fry perch, then you don’t have to bother with the heads. Having disassembled 2-3 perches in this way, you can hone the movements to the point of automaticity, and then it will take seconds to clean each fish.

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