Sturgeon in the oven whole

4 servings
1 hour 10 min

How to bake sturgeon in the oven whole? Prepare all the necessary ingredients. You can use any fish from the sturgeon family: sturgeon, sterlet, sevryugu, beluga, thorn. I took the sterlet.

First of all, defrost the fish if it is not fresh, transferring it from the freezer to the lower shelf of the refrigerator. The fish of this species are quite slippery due to the large amount of mucus. Washing it with ordinary water will not work. To clean sturgeon without much effort, take regular salt and paper napkins. Pour salt into your palm and swipe it over the fish's body from head to tail. Be careful - there are many spike-shaped growths on the fish, do not hurt your hand!

Wipe the collected mucus with salt with a paper napkin. Keep doing this until the fish is completely cleared of mucus. Clean it from the scales, large spikes can be left. They give when serving ready-made fish a unique beauty. Now wash the sturgeon well and dry with a paper towel.

Cut the abdomen and remove the insides and baked blood along the ridge (viziga). Also remove the gills. This must be done without fail so that the fish does not get a bitter taste after cooking.

Prepare the filling. How to make a filling? Wash well and dry the spring onions and parsley. Finely shave them.

Cut the lemon in half. Remove one part, it will be required a little later to decorate. Cut the zest from the other half. Cut the zest into thin strips and add to the chopped greens.

Add the mayonnaise and stir. The filling is ready.

Salt the sturgeon and pepper the outside and inside the abdomen. Tightly fill the obtained mass with the fish abdomen and fix it with toothpicks. Keep in mind that her skin is quite thick, so I advise you to make preliminary punctures with a knife.

Grease the foil with a little vegetable oil. Peel and chop the onions. Place the onion on the foil along the length of the fish. This will be a vegetable pillow that will prevent the sturgeon from sticking to the foil in the future.

Gently transfer the fish to the foil and place the belly down on the onion. Cut the deposited lemon with zest into thin half rings. If the lemon is large and the fish is not very large, then cut the half-rings again in half. Make shallow cuts on the back, insert lemon wedges into them and into the gills. Remove the rest for decoration.

Squeeze the juice from the lemon from which the zest was cut. Mix the vegetable oil with the lemon juice and brush the sturgeon thoroughly.

Carefully, so as not to tear the foil, wrap the sturgeon. On a baking sheet or, like mine, in a large baking dish, pour some water and lay down the fish.

Place the tin in a hot oven. Bake sturgeon at 200 degrees for about 30 minutes. In general, the cooking time of sturgeon depends on its size and weight. It takes 30 minutes for a small fish, and about 1 hours for a large one.

Remove the sturgeon from the oven and allow to stand for 5-10 minutes. Then carefully release the fish from the foil. Open it carefully so as not to burn with hot steam. Garnish the plate with the lettuce leaves, the remaining lemon and onion wedges. Transfer the sturgeon to a plate. Serve it hot or cold.

Enjoy your meal!