Do-It-Yourself: Preparing Fish for Drying or Smoking

30 August 2010

Men hang dried fish on a fence to be sold at a township near Cape Town, South Africa, in May.

This is the VOA Special English Development Report.

There are different ways to store fish. Two ways to keep fish for future use are canning and freezing. Two other methods are drying and smoking. Today we have the first of two reports describing, step by step, how to prepare dried or smoked fish.

Begin with fish that are just out of the water. If the fish are small, leave their heads on. Cut off the heads if the fish are longer than twenty centimeters or weigh more than one hundred fifteen grams.

Now clean the freshly caught fish. Cut off the scales and cut open the stomach. Remove everything inside. Then wash the fish in clean water and rub salt into them.

Next, put the fish in a container with a solution of three hundred grams of salt and one liter of water. This will remove the blood from the meat. Keep the fish in the saltwater for about thirty minutes. After that, wash them again in clean water.

Next, put the fish in a solution that has more salt in the water. The water should be salty enough so that the fish float to the top. If the fish sink to the bottom of the container, add more salt to the water.

Cover the container with a clean piece of wood. Place a heavy stone on the wood to hold it down. Leave the fish there for about six hours.