Homemade Canned Fish in Oil, Made in the Oven

The main thing these four hours buy you is the bones. Small bream, roach, or crucian carp — a hassle in the pan — become fully edible here: four hours in the oven soften the small bones so much you barely feel them, while the backbone of a large fish stays noticeable.

The second conclusion is less pleasant, and it needs to be said plainly. An oven at 150 °C is not a pressure canner. It doesn't provide the sterilization that allows canned fish to be kept at room temperature — that requires 120 °C under pressure, which only a pressure canner can do. A jar of oil, sealed airtight and left in a cupboard, is exactly the oxygen-free environment where the botulism bacterium multiplies.

So these preserves live in the refrigerator, and for no more than three months. The source recipe says they "keep well even at room conditions"; we don't repeat that claim and advise against doing so.

Oil and four hours in the oven give the longest shelf life — three months in the fridge. Two other ways to keep fish ready faster: perch marinated with onion and carrot takes four hours, and lightly cured trout with Dijon mustard takes two days.

Caloric content: 220kcal

Notes

• An oven doesn't replace a pressure canner. Spores of the botulism bacterium die at 120 °C under pressure. An oven doesn't reach that temperature inside the jar, so the finished product only keeps in the fridge.
• Remove the rubber gaskets from the lids. After four hours in the oven they harden and stop sealing properly. Lids with gaskets go on only for the final sealing.
• Place the jars on a tray with water. A towel and a layer of water even out the heat from below — without them the glass cracks from direct heat.
• Add the oil hot. Cold oil into a heated jar creates a temperature difference that cracks the glass.
• Salt: one and a half teaspoons per kilogram. That's about one percent. Don't use less: the salt here isn't just for flavor, it's also part of the preservation.
• Small fish works better than large. That's the whole point: in bream, roach, or crucian carp the small bones soften, while a large piece of pike-perch or catfish would simply fall apart.

Questions and Answers

How long does homemade oven-canned fish keep?

Up to three months in the refrigerator. It shouldn't be kept at room temperature at all — the oven doesn't provide sterilization.

Can these jars be kept in a cupboard?

No. A sealed jar of oil without sterilization at 120 °C is an environment where the botulism pathogen develops.

Which fish is suitable?

Small and bony: bream, roach, crucian carp, white bream. In these, the small bones soften best over four hours.

Why remove the rubber gaskets from the lids?

So they don't harden in the oven. The jars sit in the oven just loosely covered, and are sealed with gasketed lids only afterward.

Recipe and step-by-step photos — kolizhanka.net.ua.