Dried Fish (In Bengali Shootki)
If there is no preservation system, fresh fish can easily be addled. An ancient method of preserving food is drying.Drying of fish is such a preservation method in which the fish is kept in the sunlight for water removal.
Fish barn with fish drying in the sun
Because of water, many microbes can live,which help to get rotten early. The practice of drying the fish using winds and sunshades in open space has come from many ancient times.
Bacteria and mold need water to grow.So it is possible to preserve food if water is dry completely.
Drying, smoking,freeze-drying and salting method are used to preserve the fish.The oldest and easiest method is to dry the fish in the air and in the sunllight.
Drying fish in Bangladesh
Dried fish can live for a few years. This method is the easiest, tedious and effective in optimal weather conditions. The fishermen and their family members usually do this work and can be easily marketed.
Selling dried fish in market
Types of dried fish:
Stockfish
Stockfish is unsalted fish, especially cod, dried by cold air and wind on wooden racks on the foreshore. The drying racks are known as fish flakes. Cod is the most common fish used in stockfish production, though other whitefish, such as pollock, haddock, ling and tusk, are also used.
Fish Flake
Clipfish
Stockfish, dried as fresh fish and not salted, is often confused with clipfish, where the fish is salted before drying. After 2–3 weeks in salt the fish has saltmatured, and is transformed from wet salted fish to Clipfish through a drying process. The salted fish was earlier dried on rocks (clips) on the foreshore.Stockfish is cured in a process called fermentation where cold adapted bacteria matures the fish. Clipfish is processed in a chemically curing process called saltmaturing
Flattened fish drying in the sun
Bacalhau
Bacalhau is the Portuguese word for codfish and in a culinary context refers to dried and salted codfish. Fresh (unsalted) cod is referred to as bacalhau fresco (fresh cod). Bacalhau dishes are common in Portugal and Galicia, in the northwest of Spain, and to a lesser extent in former Portuguese colonies. There are said to be over 1000 recipes in Portugal.
Assorted dried fish in Manipur
Mackerel
Mackerel (Sukho Bangdo in Konkani language) is dried in Goa since ancient times. If preserved well they can stay for many years. Prawn and shark are also dried in Goa.
Baccalà
Baccalà (in Venetian Language: bacalà) is sun-dried stockfish, rather than salt cod.
Balyk is the Russian term for the salted and dried soft parts of fish of large valuable species, such as sturgeon or salmon.
Dried squid
Fesikh
Fesikh is a traditional Egyptian fish dish consisting of fermented salted and dried gray mullet, of the mugil family, a saltwater fish that lives in both the Mediterranean and the Red Seas.The traditional process of preparing it is to dry the fish in the sun before preserving it in salt.
Some famous dried fishes
Dried flying fish
Dreid shrimp
Tiny Dried Herrings
Different types of delicious foods are prepared from dried fish.Here are some pictures of delicious foods made from dried fish.
Dried Sardine Fry / Karuvad fry
Grilled Odawara Himono
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