How to easily and quickly clean the scales of river and sea bass with salt, boiling water, a knife and a grater on your own? How to properly and quickly clean small and large, fresh and frozen perch: photos and videos. How to clean a perch from scales: a step by step description

Fish is a healthy and vitamin product. For a variety of festive and everyday menus, choose different types. The beneficial properties that a river or sea bass has put it one step above its fish "brothers", but its cleaning tiresome and exhausting. To make cooking a joy, you need to know the rules for cleaning it. To do this, we suggest you watch a video on how to quickly clean a perch from scales.

"Insidious" perch

This is a predator with an attractive color. He, like the ruff, is the owner of sharp fins that help him during the hunt. But when cleaning the fins can hurt your hands Therefore, this process causes negative emotions in everyone. The small scales of a river or sea bass are so densely packed together on the skin that cleaning takes up most of the time and leaves a mess around. Washing small scales from the entire kitchen is very difficult.

In this regard, many lovers of fish dishes refuse to cook perch, because they do not understand how to quickly clean the fish.

Preparing for cleaning

It is better to clean perches immediately after they were caught, because in the hardened state it will be difficult to free it from small scales. Also, the scales can stick together from a large amount of mucous substances secreted by it.

To understand how easy it is to peel a perch from scales, you should start with preparation. And the preparatory process begins with cleaning the workplace.

For this you need:

• Wash the sink (can be cleaned directly in it).
• Prepare a board for cleaning fish. It should be exclusively a fish board, as after the perch there is a smell. But if you take a glass or plastic board, this can be avoided. A special board that contains a clip for the tail can also help in cleaning.
• Knives or graters for cleaning fish must be sharp (for cleaning fish, you can use both a knife and other special devices: a homemade brush, grater, a special knife).
• Remove all unnecessary from the table and cover it with paper or oilcloth (you can use newspapers - they will absorb excess moisture after washing the fish).

If you do not know how to clean the fish so that the scales do not fly, you need to remove them within a radius of one and a half meters all kitchen utensils.

Fish cleaning

After preparing the workplace, we begin to clean the fresh river perch. Over time, you can acquire the necessary skill and do it quickly.

To cut it, you need:

• Wash the fish from slippery plaque under running water.
• Protect your hands with work gloves.
• The carcass itself must be stretched so that all its fins crunch. To do this, you need to take it by the head and tail - pull until a crunch.
• Sharp kitchen scissors cut off all fins and trim the tail.
• Cut off the head below the pectoral fins (they can be used to cook fish soup, having previously cleared the gills, which give a bitter aftertaste to the dish).
• We clean the selected tool (knife, brush, grater) first from the tail to the head, then from the belly to the back, so the perch will be cleaned better.
• We wash the carcass well under running water (not hot) so that small scales do not get inside.
• We cut the belly of the fish from the anus to the head, not sticking the knife hard so as not to damage the insides.
• We take out the offal (if there is caviar, carefully separate it, you can cook many tasty and healthy dishes from it in oven, fry on frying pan or add to the ear).
• Wash the carcass again.

Bass Cleaning Tricks

Exist some tricks in cleaning perch - both river and sea. If you use them correctly, the process will not take much time and will be much more enjoyable.

One of these home methods is the use of salt: before cleaning, cover the fish with salt and leave for several hours (you can overnight). After that, the scales will be easier to remove, as the lamellar cover will become softer.

The second method is suitable if the fish needs to be cleaned urgently: holding the uncleaned carcass by the tail, dip into boiling water for about 10 seconds. Here, the main thing is not to overexpose, as with further cleaning, the skin may come off. From the high temperature, the scales will become softer and more elastic - this will allow you to remove it quickly, without much effort.

Another way is suitable for those who do not rush to cook. For example, if you need fish for tomorrow's frying, you can freeze a fresh perch - this will make it not so slippery, and the scales will fly out of their cells more easily.

If you plan to cook a dish where you need to get rid of the skin of the fish, you need to keep it longer in boiling water, then the scales will be easily removed along with the skin. You can also use freezing. The fish must be kept longer in the freezer, which will make it possible to get rid of the scales along with the skin.

For some cooking processes, cleaning sea bass or river bass is optional. There are a lot of videos on the Internet on how to cook river perch with scales. For example, if you plan to smoke fish or cook it on the grill, then it is enough to choose offal from it, but this is not necessary either. Rinse the fish well under running water, and salt it, you can start cooking.

Attention, only TODAY!

Perch is a predatory type of fish that has a characteristic appearance and coloration. As a result, he received several names: some call him a striped robber, in connection with the characteristic type of color, and others "humpback" because of the characteristic shape of the body.

The perch is characterized by the presence of sharp fins located both on the belly and on the back, as well as the presence of very small scales, which, like "armor", covers its body. This factor has a major impact on the way perch is cleaned.

Mostly specimens weighing up to 1 kg are caught, and then quite rarely, but larger individuals can also be found. Perch is found in most bodies of water, both with stagnant and running water. The main thing is that the reservoir has sufficient depth, clean water with a certain amount of oxygen. Perch meat is white and very tasty, with any method of cooking. At the same time, there are many dishes where perch plays a major role, shaping the taste of these dishes. The only problem is cleaning the perch from the scales. This is not at all easy and requires some skill and patience, using various devices.

What is the best way to clean perch

This device is unique in its kind, because it allows you to clean almost any fish. There is a special clip on the board, so that both hands remain free. This allows you to do whatever you want with the fish, without fear that it will break out and fall to the floor. At the same time, the psychological state of a person is not disturbed, which is very important. The only drawback is that the scales spread in different directions.

Special stainless steel scissors are produced for cutting fish. With their help, you can easily get rid of the fins, tail and head of the fish. This means that they can easily cut through the spine of a fish and deal with all the bones. The only thing is that the scissors are not very convenient in terms of the complete cutting of fish. They are convenient to use at certain stages.

A steel knife with a wide blade is able to cope with its task of cutting fish. These knives have comfortable handles, with a special texture that prevents them from slipping out of the hands, despite the fact that the hands may be greasy. The knife can be considered as an integral element of technological accessories for cutting fish.

This is a fairly versatile tool with double-sided sharpening, one side has a wave blade, which is designed for cutting products such as vegetables, bread, cheese, butter and others, and the other side of the blade is serrated, which is intended for cutting meat products such as fish . The serrated side of the blade is great for sawing through bones and fins, and it also does a great job of exfoliating scales.

This attachment is designed specifically for removing scales from fish when large amounts of work are required. The inner surface of the drum has a large abrasive effect due to the relief, which allows you to remove the scales from the fish. To make this happen, the fish is placed inside the drum and poured with plenty of water. When the drum starts to rotate, due to the sharp, rough surface, the scales begin to peel off the skin of the fish. The machine is able to process up to 200 kg of fish per hour and work in semi-automatic mode. Loading of fish is carried out in manual mode.

A scraper knife can replace a fish scaler, unless the volume of fish processing is large. This tool can be indispensable in the kitchen of any housewife if you regularly have to clean the fish. The process of removing scales from fish is a work that requires effort and energy, and also requires a certain endurance and patience. This is especially true when you have to clean the "trifle" and in large quantities.

A scraper knife is able to facilitate the work of a person, as well as minimize the appearance of debris in the kitchen, due to a special pocket in which the scales removed from the fish are collected. In addition, the work is carried out very carefully, which does not harm the carcass of the fish.

What has not been invented by home craftsmen to facilitate the work of a person when cleaning perch from scales. Some craftsmen use metal beer bottle caps. Corks are fastened in one row with the teeth up, on a wooden plank. Such an invention does not require any material costs, and the manufacturing process itself takes a minimum of time.

No less ingenious is the invention, where instead of bottle caps, a canvas from an old fine grater is used. This should take into account the fact that the grater may be too sharp, even if it is old, which can injure the perch's skin.

Learn more about how to quickly scale a perch

For starters, you need to know that a freshly caught perch is much easier to clean than one that has already lain in the refrigerator for some time. Another, no less important point - all work on cleaning a perch begins with cutting off the fins. This is necessary in order to protect yourself from injuries that can result from contact with sharp spikes. Only after that you can proceed to other operations: removal of the head, entrails and scales.

Without the presence of special devices, it is unlikely that it will be possible to remove the scales from the perch. For work you will need:

• A container with water where you can wash the fish. It is desirable to have a container of medium size.
• Cutting board. It is desirable that it be a plastic board, since wood is able to absorb odors. Each time the wooden board must be thoroughly washed.
• A sharp, easy-to-use knife with a long blade. Well, if it is a knife for cutting fish.
• Heavy paper, but not newspaper with typographical symbols. Printing ink can harm human health.
• Scissors for kitchen from stainless steel.
• Gloves from HB - fabrics. Personal safety must come first.

This method of cutting fish is suitable when the skin is not needed for cooking. First of all, the head and fins are cut off from the perch, after which the carcass is placed in the freezer for a short time.

The fish should freeze, but slightly, after which you can proceed to a fairly simple operation to remove the skin from the fish, along with the scales. After that, you can start removing the insides. A mandatory operation is a high-quality washing of the fish after cutting.

The disadvantage of this method is the fact that it is not suitable for all methods of preparing perch. If the fish is planned to be boiled or fried, then without the skin you cannot get a delicious dish. And if you plan to cook fish cakes from perch meat or pickle it, then this method will be ideal. In any case, perch meat is very tasty and healthy.

Work in the field is somewhat easier in the sense that there is a lot of space and you do not need to keep it clean, like in the kitchen. Therefore, a simple device made of caps from beer bottles is suitable for work, especially when going out into nature, beer is always present. The main thing is to have something to fix the corks. To make such a device, it is enough to spend a few minutes and you can get to work. An old, unnecessary grater can go into business. Such a device will help to quickly and efficiently get rid of perch scales.

To get a perch fillet, you need to use a steel fillet knife. First, an incision is made around the head of the fish, starting from the neck and continuing to the very ridge. Then the fish must be put on its side, after which the knife is inserted near the head itself and rotated so that, in the process of its movement, the meat is cut off from half of the ridge along the entire length completely and entirely with the skin and bones.

After that, all the bones from the abdominal cavity are cut off and the meat is separated from the skin. The same is done with the second half of the perch. If you have some experience, then you can spend no more than one minute of time on this operation.

The easiest way is to clean the perch with boiling water

In order not to spend a lot of time cleaning the perch from scales and not to invent all kinds of devices, you can use ordinary boiling water. Depending on the length of time the fish is in boiling water, the perch can be descaled or skinned and scaled at the same time. This time is set experimentally. The skin comes off very easily, just pry it off with a knife. You can also easily clean the perch from scales without spending much effort.

The sea bass has fins that contain venom glands, so working with the sea bass requires special care. And although the poison is not considered dangerous to humans, but getting into the wounds, it leads to the appearance of non-healing wounds on the human body, moreover, quite painful.

Before butchering sea bass, it is better to put gloves on your hands and, first of all, deprive it of fins, especially those that are dangerous. There are a few more tips that can make the process of cleaning sea bass easier:

• To quickly remove the scales, you can use boiling water by lowering the fish into it for a while. Again, the time can be determined experimentally, otherwise the skin can be removed along with the scales.
• The process of separating the scales can be facilitated in another way: at night, the fish is placed in rock salt, and the next morning the scales are cleaned like clockwork, if there is time for this.
• If the fish is being prepared for the smoking process, then this question disappears by itself, since the fish does not require cutting.

Most ice fishing enthusiasts can bring a lot, but small catch. In this case, cleaning small perch can turn into torture. To prevent this from happening, you do not need to stand on ceremony with small perch, but clean it along with the skin. For this you need a sharp knife. First, two cuts are made along the upper fin and all the way to the tail. After that, the skin is pried with a knife and the skin with scales is torn off with effort from the perch. In conclusion, the fish is cleaned completely.

If the knife is not sharp, then it will be another torture. Such an approach will allow you to quickly cope with the task. Despite the fact that you will not be able to get meat with a golden crust, but you will be able to taste the delicious meat of a young perch.

Alternatively, you can use boiling water to make it easier for yourself. To do this, you need to boil water and placing a small perch in a colander, lower it for a while in boiling water. If scales with skin are removed, then this is not a problem, the main thing is that it turns out very quickly. At the same time, one should not forget to remove the insides from the “little things”.

Freshly caught fish is always cleaned much easier and easier than one that has lain in the refrigerator for a couple of days. The technology for butchering fish is almost the same, regardless of the conditions under which it is butchered. It all starts with the removal of the fins, as the most dangerous parts of the perch's body. At the same time, do not ignore personal protective equipment and wear HB gloves. They will not only protect your hands from accidental injuries, but also prevent the fish from slipping out of your hands. After that, the head is removed from the fish. If there are a lot of heads, then you can cook an ear out of them.

Having fixed the carcass of the fish with a fork by the tail, small scales are removed with a knife. The disadvantage of this option is the fact that the scales can scatter in all directions absolutely uncontrollably. In this regard, you can use another trick and, before removing the scales from the fish, it is sent to the freezer. After it freezes a little, you can remove the scales from it along with the skin, like a stocking, just pry it off with a knife.

Naturally, this option is not always suitable, especially if you want to fry or bake the fish. Such recipes require the presence of skin, otherwise the dish will not work.

If you only need to remove the scales, then you already have to work hard. As mentioned above, a fixture with caps from beer bottles or from an old, unnecessary grater is suitable. Despite the fact that the process will be much simplified and accelerated, it will take a lot of strength, as well as a lot of garbage.

Currently, in the distribution network, you can purchase any device, including for cleaning fish. Although it is not necessary to rely on the reliability of such devices. The fact is that our time is the time of total savings on consumables. The device may have a fairly attractive appearance, but it can only be enough for one fish. Another thing is corks from beer bottles, which can be fixed with self-tapping screws to plywood, 10 mm thick. Yes, this device simply will not wear out! In addition, the device can be updated at any time. Yes, not just to repair, but to update: something, but beer caps in abundance.

The cutting technology is the same as if you had a knife in your hands, not scissors. First, all the fins are cut off, and then the belly is cut and the insides of the fish are removed. If you have some experience, then in a quarter of an hour, with the help of scissors, you can clean up to 1.5 kg of fish.

If you carefully read the material, then such, at first glance, not an easy task, like cleaning a perch from scales, will turn into an elementary task to be solved, especially if you include all your fantasies and ingenuity.

In any case, you can turn to the Internet for help, where you can not only read the necessary information, but also watch a video that clearly and in detail tells and shows how to quickly and easily clean a perch.

Perch is a very tasty fish, the meat of which is enriched with microelements that have a beneficial effect on the human body. Cleaning the product is sometimes difficult, especially if you do not know how to clean the perch correctly, and do not have enough experience in this.

Simple Solutions

The main difficulty in cleaning river fish is to remove the scales, which are rather small in perch: it flies in different directions, and the fish itself strives to slip out of your hands or jump off the cutting board. Some hostesses solve these problems like this:

• Before cleaning, the product is placed in a plastic bag to clean the perch from scales right in the bag, leaving the kitchen clean;
• They use knitted gloves, which makes it easy to hold and clean the fish quickly, and also not get hurt by scales;
• In order not to cut yourself, first of all, sharp fins are removed.

The easiest way to clean a perch is to use a regular sharp knife. With skill, this can be done very quickly: press the perch to a flat surface, pull the head until a characteristic crunch, peel off the scales from the middle to the belly, then peel the rest, moving against the direction of the scales. To achieve good results, you can use the following tips:

• • Freeze a fresh product a little, then it will clean up better and faster;

• Or do the opposite: pour boiling water over the fish for a few seconds. The top layer will become softer;

• Salt will also contribute to softening: you need to fill it with fish at night, and then wash and clean the river perch;

• If the meat goes for minced meat, you can remove the skin along with the scales. To do this, cut the back along the fin on both sides, pull out the fin, make an incision near the head and pull the skin from the top to the tail. It is convenient to use pliers for this.

• Before frying, it is not recommended to remove the skin, otherwise the meat will be dry, but you need to remove the offal and gills so that the taste of the finished dish does not deteriorate.

Advice! With a fresh fish, the top layer is removed quickly. The more time passes from the moment of the catch, the more difficult it will be to process the fish product.

Little tricks

To facilitate the cleaning process, many devices have been invented.

• • Appliances with waste containers;

• Boards with a clip from different materials, allowing you to quickly clean and gut the fish;

• Special scissors for cutting fins, cutting the abdomen and getting rid of the gills;
• Knives-files for bones;
• Electric fish scalers;
• Scraper knives.

Red perch is processed like river perch, but in order to clean the sea bass without fear, you must first get rid of the fins - they are much sharper in a marine inhabitant.

To save yourself from unnecessary work, before cleaning, you need to decide for what purposes the fish will be used, and whether it should be done at all. It is not at all necessary to clean small perch: it can be used for soup broth, which after cooking will still need to be filtered. Cured, dried, smoked, grilled product is usually not cleaned before cooking.

Quickly coping with a fish product with such a variety of devices is a simple matter, especially if you train more often. By learning how to process it properly and using your ingenuity, you can cook such a nutritious dish for as long as you want, forgetting about the complexities of cleaning and looking forward to a delicious lunch or dinner.

Perch is a very tasty and nutritious fish, but cleaning it is more often a problem than cooking itself.

The fins, and the scales themselves, are very sharp, so inexperienced cleaners hurt their hands very badly. But this can be avoided if you take into account a few nuances that are important at the time of cleaning and cutting fish.

So, the main question is how to clean the perch without harm to yourself, but at the same time efficiently and quickly.

To clean or not to clean

In many cases, it is not necessary to clean the perch at all. At the same time, dishes from such fish turn out to be no less tasty than if it had undergone this procedure.

Cases when cleaning is not needed:

When baking perch on the grill;

In case of salting and further drying of fish;

If the perch is dried;

When fish is used to make fish soup;

The finished perch does not require cleaning.

In each of these cases, the removal of scales is not required, but some measures are still required to eliminate the offal. For example, for fish soup and baking, the insides and gills are completely removed. If this is not done, then the dish may taste bitter or taste like lake mud. In other cases, the perch lends itself to radial processing, therefore, it does not require any measures for cleaning.

Rules for accurate and quick cleaning

If the fish needs to be fried or boiled and does not have an impressive size, then you should clean the fish completely: remove the gills, pull out the offal, remove the scales. Few people know how to clean perch in these cooking cases correctly, but it is actually very easy.

What rules should be followed so as not to litter the kitchen with scales, do it quickly and do not get hurt at the same time:

1. When buying, you should choose fish as fresh as possible - it is much easier to clean than frozen several times.

2. Before cleaning the perch, the sharp fins are cut off. Usually this is done with scissors, but you can cut the fin with its lower part with a knife.

3. Gloves can be worn while scaling. So it is possible to avoid injuries from fins and scales.

4. In order for the scales to be properly cleaned, you need to stretch the vertebrae of the fish. Holding the tail firmly, pull the perch by the head.

5. It is necessary to properly remove the scales: the procedure is performed with a sharp knife, and with the tip; the direction of movement is diagonal - from the abdomen to the back and vice versa; The rest of the scales are removed with a knife in the direction from the tail to the head.

It is the scales that cause so much trouble during cleaning, so it is often pre-treated in several ways:

Perch can be covered with salt for 12 hours, then the skin and scales will soften a little.

Before cleaning, the carcass is slightly frozen.

Pour boiling water over the fish or keep it for a few seconds in hot water.

Use special tools for removing scales. You can buy them at the store or make your own. The home analogue is a beer cap attached to a stick.

If you clean the fish in water or under a tap, then the scales will not scatter all over the room.

Cutting methods

How to clean a perch becomes clear, but how to cut it properly remains a mystery. This must be done in such a way as not to damage the skin and not tear the meat, otherwise the perch dish will have an unaesthetic appearance.

Some perch dishes require the skin to be removed. This procedure is carried out in several stages:

1. Using a knife, cuts are made along the spine from below and above the carcass;

2. The fins are completely cut out;

3. The skin around the head is superficially separated from the body;

4. The skin is removed from the tail to the head;

5. When the process reaches the head, it is cut off along with a leather stocking.

In this way, cleaning the scales can be avoided. The head is well separated and the insides are easily drawn out.

Removing the insides and separating the fillet from the bones is also very easy. An incision is made on the abdomen along the vertebrae. Using a spoon, you can remove the insides. To get rid of the black film that covers the ribs, you need to clean it with a knife. When the offal is removed, you can start thinning.

This process is still more often done after the skin is removed from the fish. The fish is placed on a cutting board and pressed tightly with the palm of the hand. For thinning, you need a knife with a sharp and wide blade. Starting from the tail and moving towards the head, an incision is made along the spine. This happens on the other hand as well.

When the spine is completely separated, you can begin to remove the small bones that are in the back, and the ribs are also removed. This is done with tongs. Checking for bones is easy - just run your fingers over the surface of the meat.

You can cook such a tidbit in many ways and you should not worry at all that scales or a bone will come across in a dish - this is out of the question.

You went fishing, caught a perch and think - what to do with it? Don't throw it away? Gotta make some delicious food! You can find out about the recipes for perch dishes in the corresponding section of this site, but now let's get together (yes, I just gathered my strength to take and clean the perch 😉) and start cooking the perch. Almost every recipe begins with the words "clean the perch from the scales." That is what we are going to do now.

How to quickly and correctly clean a perch from scales?

Usually women are very annoyed by perch scales, which can even be called a shell. But with a certain skill, it is even easier to rid a perch of scales than to clean a crucian or an ide. I know two options for cutting perch, but wandering around all these Internets, you can learn a lot.

The secret to cleaning perch at home

The first one I use is at home. You need to freeze perch in the freezer. Take it out at the right time and let it rest at room temperature for up to an hour. As soon as the perch becomes at least a little soft, you need to make cuts on the skin along the back, belly and around the perimeter of the head. From a frozen perch, the skin, along with the scales, is torn off very easily and simply, and almost without leaving any meat on it.

How to clean a perch while camping

The second option is used for non-frozen perch and applied in the field. We need a good fillet knife. We cut the "throat" of the perch along the head to the ridge. We put the perch on one side and near the head we immerse the knife to the ridge, turn the knife blade to the tail and, following parallel to the ridge, cut off one half of the perch from the ridge along with the bones and skin.
Then we remove the abdominal bones with a knife and cut the meat from the skin. We do the same with the second half of the perch. In experienced hands and with a good knife, cutting one perch into a clean fillet takes no more than 30 seconds. 8-10 perfect movements and you're done.

How to clean fresh river perch?

Fresh perch are a little easier to clean than stale ones. To begin with, we cut off all the fins with scissors so as not to prick. Then cut off the head. Armed with a knife and fork, we begin to clean. Before starting work, put on gloves, as the fish slides. We press the tail to the cutting board, hook the scales with a fork or knife and remove. It is more convenient to clean not from the tail to the head, but from the abdomen to the back. The downside of this method is the scales all over the kitchen, and it’s hard to get. But there is a faster way to easily clean the perch: after you have cut off all the fins and separated the head, put the carcasses in the freezer for a while. When they are slightly frozen, we take it out and, prying off the skin with a knife, easily remove it along with the scales, like a stocking. And in the kitchen there is no order and garbage.

How to clean perch with scissors?

First, we cut the belly at the gills with scissors in one motion. Then, with the second movement, we cut the belly of the fish from the gills to the cloaca. We tear out all the insides with a finger from the head to the tail. We tear out the gills with a movement from the middle of the belly to the head. In order not to stand and strain, you can sit down and quickly cut all the fish at the gills, then cut the abdomens of all the fish, and then clean the insides with your finger! That is, not every fish, first this, then that, but it is more convenient and faster to do operations in turn over the entire catch! Approximately 1.5 kilos of small perch with a stuffed hand is cleaned in 15 minutes. And yes, there is a lot of blood (albeit fish).

Well, or you can do this:

What is the best way to clean perch?

All the methods described above are good only if you cut the fish for minced meat or for salting. This method is not suitable for frying and baking. How, then, to properly clean the perch? Craftsmen offer this method. We nail iron corks from beer bottles to a simple but convenient wooden stick. Or another device: cut off a cloth from an old vegetable grater and nail it to a wooden block. With such devices, the fish is cleaned easily and quickly. True, it is better to do this on the street, because the scales fly in all directions. And in general, now the market offers a wide range of universal fish cleaners, which have a pocket for collecting scales. When buying, pay attention to the quality of the product and the thickness of the metal so that it does not break or bend.

By the way, I have collected a collection of perch cleaners for you

Fish cleaner

Army Perch Cleaner

perch cleaner

There is also such a device for cleaning perch

Homemade perch cleaner - scales fly in all directions

Industrial grade perch cleaner

Fish cleaner

What is the best way to clean sea bass?

Basically also. True, the sea bass is a prickly fish and has poisonous glands on its fins, and if a wound is pricked about them, it will hurt a lot and heal for a long time. Therefore, be sure to wear gloves and cut off the fins. Other than that, here are a few tips:
Before you start cleaning the fish, dip it for a few seconds in boiling water. The main thing is not to overdo it, otherwise the skin will peel off along with the scales.
You can also cover the fish with coarse rock salt at night. In the morning, you can quickly and easily remove it with a knife.
If you are going to smoke perch, it is not necessary to clean it at all.

How to clean small perch?

In winter, small perch are most often caught. The fish, of course, is tasty, but there is a lot of trouble with it. It is better to clean it immediately and remove the scales along with the skin. To do this, we make two cuts along the upper fin, from head to tail. In this case, the knife must be very sharp. In this way, cutting one fish takes several minutes. True, a crispy crust will not work when frying, but we will enjoy the tender perch meat.
Gutting perches from the side of the abdomen, making an incision from the head to the anal fin. After that, we take out the insides and wash the abdominal cavity. Then we make cuts on both sides of the dorsal fin and pull it out. The carcass is ready.
I hope that these simple tips on how to clean perch will help and make it easier to prepare wonderful and tasty dishes from this fish.

And for a snack, I prepared a video on how to quickly clean a perch.