Properties of eel fish
Nutritional value and composition | Vitamins | Minerals
How much does eel fish cost (average price per 1 kg)?
Moscow and Moscow region.
900 rub.
Nowadays, eel fish has firmly established itself in the menu of Japanese restaurants; we think many people like to enjoy sushi with eel. Fish Eel Common (also called: river, European) belongs to a predatory fish species, which also forms the eel family. The size of the eel fish is truly amazing.
The length of the fish can reach two meters, while the appearance of the eel resembles water or sea snakes. Eel fish live mainly in the Baltic, Caspian or Barents seas. There are also freshwater species of eel fish, which are common in lakes and rivers of the European part of the Russian Federation.
What is noteworthy is that the eel fish is classified by the international organization Greane Peace as one of those fish species that are in danger of complete extinction in the near future due to an increase in the scale of industrial production. Eel fish are divided into several main species depending on their habitat. The conger eel or conger differs from its river counterpart in the color of its body, which is completely devoid of scales.
It is the conger eel that is most often mistaken for a snake. What is noteworthy is that the calorie content of sea eel is less than that of river fish, the meat of which is fattier and juicier (30% fat). River eel meat can be subjected to any type of heat treatment (baking, frying, parca, boiling, carcassing and smoking) and will not lose its taste.
In many countries around the world, lovers of fish cuisine consider dishes with eel to be delicacies. The fish acquires its distinctive taste due to its fairly fatty meat. For the same reason, the calorie content of eel is at a fairly high level and amounts to 333 Kcal per 100 grams.
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Benefits of eel
In addition to beneficial vitamins and elements, eel contains natural substances such as proteins and saturated fatty acids. It is the content of polyunsaturated fatty acids that makes the benefits of eel invaluable and exceptional. Omega-3 or Omega-6 acids are vital for the human body.
Doctors say that regular consumption of eel fish helps prevent and treat many diseases. As a result of recent medical research, it has been revealed that the beneficial properties of eel prevent vision problems, cancer, and also fight premature aging of the skin.
Properties of smoked eel
Nutritional value and composition | Vitamins | Minerals
How much does smoked eel cost (average price per 1 kg)?
Moscow and Moscow region.
1630 rub.
It's amazing how the ancient culinary traditions of one state can influence the taste preferences of residents of other countries that are separated by thousands of kilometers. Nowadays, more and more people give their preference to dishes from various world culinary traditions. Professionals and amateur chefs are no longer focused only on their ancestral traditions and culture. Cooking is beginning to become a universal language of communication, which is understood in all corners of the globe.
We can easily give an example; we don’t even need to go far. Japanese sushi is no longer a curiosity for modern Russians. Most domestic housewives are fluent in the art of making sushi. Of course, the domestic interpretation of a Japanese dish is not always comparable to the original.
Just 10 years ago, sushi was considered a great delicacy and a rare guest on our tables, as well as the ingredients for the dish. Here, for example, is smoked eel, a fish that has long been a special or holiday treat. Nowadays you can easily find smoked eel in the fish section of most grocery stores. Smoked eel is simply an irreplaceable product that should be included in the arsenal of every sushi lover.
Smoked eel is eaten primarily because of its excellent taste. However, few people know that in addition to taste, smoked eel can boast of a large number of useful substances included in the product. In Japanese folk medicine, smoked eel is considered a medicinal dish that can actually cure some diseases. Smoked eel will bring the greatest benefit to the health of the stronger sex. Japanese healers call this fish a man's dish.
The eel is an unusual fish, which is distinguished by its appearance, more similar to a snake than to the inhabitants of the deep sea. Some eels reach a length of two or more meters. The average weight of an eel fish reaches 3 kilograms; it is rare, but there are especially large specimens weighing up to 5 kilograms. Eels are divided into two main types, depending on their habitat.
Sea and river eels are found in nature. In principle, the taste of sea or smoked river eel is no different, but the chemical compositions of the two types differ. Smoked sea eel contains more proteins and less fat. Such characteristics determine the calorie content of smoked eel. The composition of river eel is dominated by fats and contains a small amount of protein.
Therefore, the calorie content of smoked river eel will be significantly higher, and the fish meat will be fattier and juicier. However, in any case, smoked eel meat will contain a rich amount of polyunsaturated fatty acids, vitamins, minerals and proteins. Smoked eel is considered not only a tasty product, but also a source of biologically active substances essential for the human body.
How to cook cold smoked eel
Cold smoked eel can be prepared in various ways. Let's talk about the most popular methods among lovers of this delicacy:
- The carcasses are salted, arranged according to size, and then soaked. Then the carcasses need to be completely dried. Then they are completely put on hooks and smoked in smoke at temperatures up to +35 degrees C. The time can vary from 1 day to 4.
- The second method involves cutting the eel carcass into 2 halves. Next, the pieces are soaked in 20% brine. Salting time depends on weight. For example, halves of 1 kilogram should be kept in brine for 4-5 hours. Then the pieces need to be soaked for 2-3 hours in water. Then the carcasses are hung on hooks and smoked at temperatures up to +30 degrees C for 1-3 days.
- If the fish was previously frozen, then it needs to be kept in brine longer - up to 5 days, and it also soaks longer - more than 6 hours. Smoking itself lasts up to 4 days at a temperature of +35 degrees C.
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If you want your smoked eel to last longer, you can dry it for 24 hours after smoking.
Common river eel
Sometimes it is simply called the river eel (Latin: Anguilla anguilla), and also the European eel, the common eel, and the common river eel. Due to poaching, the river eel was on the verge of complete extinction, so it was included in the International Red Book (2008), which, however, has not yet made it scarce (eel is easy to get in European stores). The main part of the population lives in the reservoirs of the Baltic Sea basin, a smaller part - in the rivers and lakes of the White, Barents, Black, Azov and Caspian seas. It is found in most rivers and large lakes of the European part of Russia.
The river eel is able to crawl on grass, as long as it is damp (after rain or dew). Thus, he can move from one body of water to another. This is how he populated all the drainless lakes.
Description of the river eel
The color of the river eel varies greatly. Juveniles are dark green, olive or gray-brown in color, they lack any markings, and the belly is yellow or yellowish-white. In adults, the belly becomes silvery-white.
The body is very elongated: with a length of up to 2 meters, the river eel weighs no more than 4 kg.
Larvae of river eels (leptocephali) up to 7.6 cm in size.
The remaining morphological features of the river eel are characteristic of all eels.
Lifestyle of the river eel
The river eel is a typical migratory fish. It spends most of its life in freshwater bodies of water and spawns in the sea. In fresh water bodies it prefers quiet backwaters, but is sometimes found in places with fast currents. The depth of fresh water bodies is not of fundamental importance for the habitat of the river eel, just as the nature of the soil is unimportant for it, the main thing is that there are many secluded shelters in the reservoir (burrows, boulders, snags, thick algae).
It is a typical predator, and a nocturnal one, although if the prey is right in front of its nose, it will grab it at any time of the day. It prefers to hunt in shallow water, eating small fish, frogs, mollusks, and insect larvae.
For spawning, the European river eel makes a crazy length of migration - up to 8 thousand km from feeding grounds. Moreover, most of the river eel goes to the Sargasso Sea to spawn, where the temperature of the upper layers of water is heated to 17-18 o C. Having reached this sea, it goes to a depth of 400 m, spawns and immediately dies. One female leaves up to 500 thousand eggs and even more. The leptocephali hatched from the larvae are shaped like a willow leaf, almost transparent, only the eyes are black. The larvae are so different from the adults that they were once considered a separate species of fish. After hatching, they float to the upper layers of the water and for several years drift with the warm waters of the Gulf Stream to the shores of Europe. By the end of such migration, leptocephals reach a length of 8 cm and a height of 1 cm, then they stop feeding, shorten to 5-6 cm in length and degenerate into a transparent (“glass”) eel. At this stage, eels enter river mouths. As they rise upstream, they lose transparency and when they get to feeding grounds, they are not much different in appearance from their adult relatives, except perhaps in size.
The European eel spends 9-12 years in rivers and then goes to spawn. By the way, scientists still don’t know exactly how the river eel navigates. There are only two hypotheses: 1) according to currents, 2) according to the Earth’s magnetic field.
Common river eel in cooking
The European eel is a fish that is highly valued in cooking, and therefore is the object of fishing, both industrial and sports, and amateur. Its annual global catch is 8-10 thousand tons. The easiest way to catch an eel is with regular hook and line gear, although it is possible to use a variety of traps.
European eel meat is soft and very tasty. It is fried, pickled, smoked. Fish soups made from eel are considered the most delicious dishes.
Eel caught on an industrial scale is partially used to make canned food, the most famous of which in Russia is “Eel in Jelly.”
Nutritional value of river eel (per 100 g)
The nutritional value
Macronutrients
Useful properties of eel
Eel meat is a very nutritious food product. Its calorie content is approximately the same as that of fatty pork. But eel is better than fatty pork, if only because most of its fats consist of unsaturated fatty acids, and therefore will not cause harm to the body. Such fat will not increase the level of “bad” cholesterol in the blood. And yet, people who tend to be overweight should not overeat on eel.
Eel is rich in protein, which contains all the essential amino acids. Therefore, eel is indicated for physical exhaustion, high physical activity and as part of recovery (after severe operations) diets.
Eel contains a lot of omega-3 fatty acids, which prevent the development of many cardiovascular diseases, especially atherosclerosis.
The Japanese love eel because, in their opinion, it helps relieve fatigue in extreme heat and thereby helps them better withstand extremely high temperatures. It is noteworthy that in Japan the highest price for eel dishes is at the height of summer. Moreover, at this time of year, the Japanese cook eel on the grill.
Eel is very rich in various vitamins, especially vitamins A and E. In terms of vitamin A content, eel is a record holder among food products. Who doesn’t know, vitamin A improves vision, the condition of epithelial tissues, skin, hair and nails. The only thing comparable to it is cod liver. It also contains a lot of vitamin E, and this vitamin is a powerful antioxidant, therefore it slows down the aging process.
Changes in the BJU of eel during cold smoking
Those who are on a diet are accustomed to comparing the calorie content of fresh and smoked foods. And if you take fresh eel, then 100 g of product will have the following composition:
- calorie content - 332 kcal;
- fats - 30.5 g;
- proteins - 14.5 g.
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Composition of cold smoked eel per 100 g of product:
- calorie content - 326 kcal;
- fats - 28.6 g;
- proteins - 17.9 g.
As the eel is smoked, it retains all the beneficial elements and vitamins that can support human health.
Cooking hot smoked eel
The correct recipe for smoking eel in a hot smoker involves choosing only fresh fish. It is better not to buy frozen fish. By following this rule, the finished product will be more aromatic and tastier.
Hot smoked eel
If it is not possible to buy a smokehouse, then you can always make it yourself from a barbecue, a barrel or even a simple bucket. For ideal color, taste and aroma, choose beech or oak chips; fruit trees are also suitable.
Consistent recipe for hot smoked eel:
- To quickly kill a live fish, prepare a brine and place the eel in it until it dies. For brine, dissolve salt in water until the potatoes float.
- Remove the dead carcass from the saline solution and start cleaning - remove any mucus with a brush or thoroughly rub the fillet with salt and rinse with water.
- Important! The eel's skin is heavily coated with mucus, which affects the final taste of the product. Therefore, this cleaning step cannot be skipped.
- Remove the giblets (leave the head) and rinse with water.
- Start marinating - prepare a marinade from water (5 l) and salt (1 kg). Place the carcass in the cooled brine and after 25 minutes, rinse, wipe with a paper towel and dry in fresh air for 60 minutes.
Gutted eel
See more fish marinades in this article.
- Place the prepared wood chips on the bottom of the smokehouse and place a tray on top to drain the fat (you can use a sheet of foil).
- To ensure even smoking, insert spacers into the belly of the fish, place on the grill and place in the smoker.
- Close the lid tightly and put on fire.
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Hot smoked sea eel is cooked for 2 hours over low heat, after which the temperature rises and after 90 minutes the product will be completely ready.
After removing the smokehouse, do not rush to take out the fish carcasses - let them cool and become saturated with smoke.
Healthy! The calorie content of hot smoked eel is 326 kcal.
