Fish – How to Counteract Excessive Saltiness in Dried Fish?

Here is a a basic video tutorial so you can see the basic steps.

The biggest traps when cleaning fish is failing to remove all the guts, leaving bones in the filet, and not removing all the scales from the fish. You can, if you choose, just gut the fish and cook whole stuffed with some aromatics, which can be really good. This guy will show you how. This works very well with smaller fish like trout assuming your guests are used to it.

So to avoid the pitfalls mentioned above, you need to make sure that the cavity of the fish is fully empty before you start the filet. You also want to run your hand over the outside of the fish after your rinse of the cavity to make sure that all scales are gone. The best way to keep bones out is start at the spine and let the fishes rib cage guide your knife down and out. If you want to remove the skin (not recommended for trout but other fish have much tougher skins), just put the filet skin-side down and slide your knife along at a ten degree angle.

Oh, and the most important thing? Use a filet knife that is super sharp, you definately don't want to tackle cleaning with out a sharp knife.

There are a number of factors that will contribute to how well the salt penetrates the interior of the piece of fish including thickness of the fish, types of tissue that have to be penetrated, and length of brine. The skin creates a significant barrier to salt penetration and the solution will penetrate the meat from its face and from its leaner side. After brining there will be more salt near the lean face than near the skin area. In order to get the most even salt penetration remove the skin, cut the pieces thin like sushi or ceviche, and brine in a 15% salt solution for 2-3 hours. For even penetration you need even contact on both sides of the meat so you either need to suspend the pieces in the solution, or flip them at regular intervals.

The surface will always be saltier than the core, but with thinner pieces and sufficient time the difference will be negligible.

If you want to use larger pieces you will need to extend the time. Consider combining a soaking brine with injections of the brine solution into the meat itself.

You could brine any kind of fish that you would find in a sushi restaurant, just make sure it is as fresh as possible.

EDIT:

After reading citizens comment I was able to find this site which states that salted herring typically has a salt concentration of 7-13%, however this article's abstract leads me to believe that a dry cure then brine combination may be responsible for the higher salt concentration. According an article about hams and sausages, wet curing methods can reach salt concentrations up to 26%, but maximum weight gain is reached with a salt concentration around 5%. The first site also notes that salt concentrations above 7% are considered unpalatable by most people.