Carp cooked according to a Chinese recipe and baked in sweet and sour sauce. Carp for the Chinese New Year table How to cook carp with vegetables in the oven

The name of the recipe alone seems difficult to prepare. But this is not true at all. cooked according to a Chinese recipe in sauce, it's a breeze to prepare. And carp meat turns out incredibly tasty.

And to prove this, I propose to cook carp with us according to a Chinese recipe and bake it in sweet and sour sauce:

• Carp – 1 piece (about 500 grams)
• Soy sauce (classic) – 3 tablespoons
• Ketchup – 2,100 milliliters
• Lemon – ½ piece
• Salt – 1 tsp.

And before you start preparing the carp aspic, wash the fish from mucus under running water. Remove the gills from the carp's head. Cut off the fins and tail. Cut the belly to remove the giblets from the fish. Now, remove the scales. Rinse the cleaned carp carcass in running water to remove any remaining particles of offal and blood.

Now let's prepare the sweet and sour sauce for carp. To do this, simply mix ketchup and classic soy sauce in a plate.

Add some freshly squeezed lemon juice.

Place the cleaned and washed carp on foil and wipe it, both outside and inside, with sweet and sour sauce.

Wrap the carp, grated with sweet and sour sauce, tightly in foil, place on a baking sheet and place in the oven. We will bake for 40 minutes at 180 degrees. To ensure the carp is fully cooked, bake it in foil for at least 20 minutes, then unfold the foil and bake again at the same temperature. Now, we need to keep the carp in the oven until it is covered with a golden crust.

When the carp, according to the Chinese recipe, baked in sweet and sour sauce, acquires a golden color, it can be removed from the oven and transferred to a serving dish. And also, decorate it with herbs and mayonnaise.

Bon appetit!

Chinese cuisine is replete with a wide variety of fish and seafood dishes. From time immemorial, the Chinese have given preference to healthy food, and with great pleasure they prepare many fish dishes, both from sea and river fish. And one of the most popular is carp in sweet and sour sauce in Chinese. In the cuisine of the Celestial Empire, there are many different variations of preparing this dish, and we will get acquainted with one of them.

What you will need:

• 1 fresh carp from 1.2 to 1.3 kg;
• 1 lemon;
• 1 small fresh ginger root;
• A set of dry spices (allspice, coriander, anise and fennel;
• Corn starch;
• Sesame oil;
• Classic soy sauce;
• Natural honey;
• 1 orange;
• red hot pepper;
• several cloves of garlic;
• sesame seed;
• pine nuts;
• any fresh herbs.

Cooking

Carp in sweet and sour sauce is easy to prepare, the main thing is to stick to the recipe. So, first of all, we remove the gills from the carp, clean it of scales and remove all the insides. We cut off the head, fins and tail and leave it together with the spine for preparing fish broth. From the sides of the carcass we cut off the fillet along with the skin. Don’t forget to make cuts on the inside of each piece at a distance of about two centimeters from each other diagonally, crosswise.

Let's start preparing the marinade. For it you need to mix freshly squeezed lemon juice or lime juice with grated or finely chopped ginger root, with the addition of dry spices. Marinate the fish and leave for 20 minutes.

Now let's make the sweet and sour sauce. Mix freshly squeezed orange juice with honey, crushed garlic and soy sauce. Add hot red pepper. We filter. If you like a thick sauce, add starch to your liking to bring the sauce to the desired consistency.

Fry the fillets until beautifully golden brown in a very hot frying pan, after drying them with a napkin and breading them in starch.

Don't forget to shake the pan several times while frying the fish. Boneless fish is fried quickly enough, no more than seven to eight minutes. There is no need to overcook the fish.

Carp in sweet and sour sauce goes well with rice, beans, potatoes, noodles, pickled vegetables, salads, rice or fruit wine. Bon appetit!

In the near future, we will continue our acquaintance with the best dishes of Chinese cuisine, as well as various countries of Southeast Asia. And if you liked this recipe, share the link on social media. networks. See you!

Don’t be surprised if you receive a live carp as a gift for Chinese New Year. There is no better way to wish for prosperity in China.

The Chinese pay special attention to the choice of gifts. Pears should not be given to newlyweds, because the name of the fruit is consonant with the word “to break up.” Live fish, on the contrary, will always be received with gratitude, because the word “fish” (yu) is close in sound to the word “abundance”, and river carp (liyu) is close to the expression “good profit”.

For the Chinese, carp is a special fish, promising, in addition to financial success, wisdom and longevity. According to legend, the Taoist saint - the immortal Qin-Gao - traveled on the back of a carp. Another ancient legend tells how carp, swimming to spawn against the current of the Yellow River, were able to overcome the Dragon Gate Falls. They went to heaven and turned into dragons. However, there is a belief that not all carp were so lucky. Some received a special mark for their laziness, and therefore you need to choose the fish carefully: according to one version, a carp with a red spot on its forehead can doom a person to failure.

Another Chinese legend tells how the original recipe for squirrel carp was invented in the city of Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. Allegedly, Emperor Qianlong (1711–1799) of the Qing Dynasty, while traveling, entered the temple and saw fresh carp on the altar. The ruler wanted to try the fish intended for the gods, and the cook, in order to avoid their anger, decided to cook the carp in a sweet and sour sauce, making it look like a squirrel. To do this, the head of the carp is cut off and placed vertically on a dish, and the tail of the fish is given the same position.

There are many ways to prepare carp in Chinese cuisine: it is steamed and deep-fried. According to one version, the well-known dish “carp in sweet and sour sauce” was invented in the kingdom of Lu (modern Shandong province), the homeland of Confucius. Carp from the Yellow River were marinated in rice wine to remove the unpleasant smell. The fillet was carefully cut crosswise so that it could be thoroughly soaked in the marinade. The fish was then coated in rice starch and fried in hot oil in a wok. As a result, each piece became crispy and golden in color.

In Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong Province, located in the Pearl River Delta (Pearl River), fish in sweet and sour sauce is also prepared in its own way. It is customary to use the famous Chinese plum sauce here. By the way, plum also symbolizes good luck in Chinese culture. Thanks to generations of Chinese emigrants who left the southern port city of Guangzhou for Europe to seek their fortune, sweet and sour carp has become well known in the West.

If you decide to celebrate Chinese New Year or invite Chinese friends for a carp dinner, don't forget one more important thing: the table should not be covered with a white tablecloth. In China, white is a symbol of death. But the red tablecloth will bring everyone happiness, good luck, and pleasure from a friendly meal.

Squirrel carp in sweet and sour sauce

RECIPE

How many servings: 2
Cooking time: 15 minutes

1. Remove scales from the carp, remove the entrails, and cut along the belly. Separate the head and, having removed the gills, place it on a tray. Trim the tail. Make a longitudinal cut from the ridge to the tail, leaving a small piece uncut so that the parts of the fillet remain connected. Remove the backbone and large bones. Trim the edges of the fillet. Make many parallel cuts at an angle almost to the skin, then repeat in the opposite direction at a different angle, crosswise, so that each of the small bones remaining in the fillet is cut.

2. Season the carp fillet and head with salt and pepper, roll in starch so that it fills all the cuts. Shake off excess starch. Fold each part of the fish in half - the fleshy part outward, the skin inward.

3. Heat the vegetable oil well in a wok. Using a large slotted spoon, carefully lower the carp head into it and fry for 5 minutes. Remove the head and set aside. Carefully lower the fillets into the hot oil and fry for 5 minutes. A couple of minutes before the end of frying, place the carp head again. Remove the fish fillet and head from the wok and place on a plate to drain the oil.

4. Mix all ingredients for the sauce in a saucepan and place over low heat. Bring the sauce to a boil and immediately turn off. Fry green peas and diced pineapple in a frying pan for a couple of minutes and add to the sauce. Place the carp on a dish and pour the sauce over it. Garnish with cilantro.

Chinese carp fish is cooked in a large amount of vegetable oil. Usually, before frying, carp fillets are deeply cut and a special notch is made. This creates a large area of ​​contact between the fish and the hot oil. At the end of cooking, the carp is poured with Chinese sweet and sour sauce.

Ingredients:

• 1.5 kg carp
• 100 g soy sauce and water
• lemon
• cornstarch for the sauce and for dredging the fillets
• 3 tbsp. tablespoons of tomato paste and dry white wine (rice wine is best)
• ginger root
• 1 tbsp. spoon of brown sugar

Carp in Chinese sweet and sour sauce is a delicious dish that is not a shame to serve on a holiday table.

You can cook the whole carcass in sweet and sour sauce. But frying will require a lot of vegetable oil. It is more economical to cook only fillets. How to cut carp for frying is written in detail.

Remove the fish's entrails, head, tail, and fillet it. Make diagonal cuts on each piece, being careful not to cut through the skin. Squeeze the juice from the lemon. Salt the fish, pour soy sauce and lemon juice, leave to marinate for 20 minutes.

Roll the cut fish flesh in starch and fry in boiling oil until crispy.

Chinese sweet and sour sauce for carp

To prepare sweet and sour for carp, grate the ginger root on a fine grater. Mix water, soy sauce, lemon juice, wine, and chopped ginger in a saucepan.
Place the pan on the fire and bring the contents to a boil. Add tomato paste and sugar to the mixture. Boil it for five minutes. To thicken the sweet and sour sauce, dilute one tablespoon of starch in three tablespoons of water and add to the pan. Cook for another two minutes until the sweet and sour carp sauce thickens.
Place the fried fillet on a plate and pour over the sauce. Garnish the dish with herbs and pine nuts.

Sometimes when preparing the sauce, not only ginger is used, but also garlic and chili. Some fans make the sauce with mango, pineapple, peaches, cardamom, star anise and goji berries.

Carp is a fairly common fish in our country; many people have tried it and love it, because it is a tasty and versatile fish from which you can prepare a lot of wonderful dishes. We will talk about how to cook carp and the most delicious dishes that can be made from it.

Carp spread throughout the world from China, where it was bred artificially. That is, such a fish simply did not exist in nature, and carp is an artificially bred breed of carp, brought from China to Europe in the 12th century. Today it lives in ponds and rivers all over the world, and several breeds of it have been bred - scaly, mirror, framed, naked. It is not found only in the waters of South America, the island of Madagascar and Australia.

It is very easy to buy fresh carp, since it is sold live - it tolerates transportation well even over long distances. However, not every housewife takes full advantage of the availability of this fish, and the reason for this is the most famous drawback of this fish - the abundance of small bones.

However, you shouldn’t refuse dishes from this fish because of this - there are many ways and tricks on how to cut carp quickly and without unnecessary problems. In addition, it is not only publicly available, but also inexpensive, has tasty juicy meat, slightly fatty, so a wide variety of fish dishes are prepared from it.

How to cut carp

Having bought live fish, do not refuse the offer to clean it, but it is better to gut it yourself at home:

• First you need to remove the dorsal fin, making shallow cuts on both sides along its entire length, then you need to pull the fin, wrapping it in a towel so as not to cut yourself, in the direction from the tail to the head;
• Next, from head to tail, make a cut in the abdomen, carefully remove the liver and gall bladder (if it is torn, rub the places where the bile got in with salt or cut them out);
• Remove the remaining entrails, gills and eyes of the fish; the film covering the vertebral bone must be cut lengthwise;
• Rinse it with cold running water and then cut the fish depending on the cooking method.

How to clean carp from scales

If it is not possible to clean the carp right away in the store, then do not despair, you can easily do it yourself. Don’t be scared by the old grandfather’s methods when they cleaned it with a knife against scales and the whole kitchen was dirty. There is a simple, proven way to clean carp from scales.

1. To do this, place the fish in a deep cup and pour boiling water over it for 30 seconds.
2. Pour out the hot water and place the fish under running cold water so that it cools and does not cook from boiling water.
3. Next, you don’t have to take the fish out of the cup of cold water, but by placing your hands in the water and running your fingers against the scales, it will easily separate.
4. If the fish is large and the scales are very thick and difficult to separate, then you can pour boiling water again for 10-20 seconds, again under cold water. Now the scales will definitely come off easily.
5. You can also help yourself separate the scales with a knife, but do it carefully so as not to cut the already steamed skin of the fish.

And now for the most interesting part:

How to cut up carp and get rid of small bones?

In China, the homeland of carp, its fillet, having been cleared of large bones, is simply ground into minced meat, and during the cooking process, the ground small bones soften and partially dissolve.

If the fish will be cooked whole, then even in this case you can deal with small bones: for this, before frying, stewing or baking, as well as steaming, deep cuts are made on the fish carcass from the back along its entire length, and they are made crosswise - the more frequent cuts you make, the more small seeds will be crushed and softened during the heat treatment.

In addition, this technique allows the fish meat to be better saturated with seasonings and spices and cook faster.

The following method for filleting carp will also help get rid of small bones.

How to fillet carp

• cut off the head
• cut the fish in half lengthwise into two halves along the ridge,
• cut off the ridge, fin and small bones adjacent to it,
• carefully cut out the rib bones in one layer,
• use your fingers to feel the groove with sharp bones in the fillet, move 5 mm to the left from them and cut the fillet to the skin, holding the knife at an angle of 45 degrees,
• do the same, stepping back from those bones 5mm to the right,
• tear off the strip with bones from the skin,
• also remove small bones in the tail part of the fish.

As you can see, if you are willing to take the time to cut up the carp and remove the bones, then turning a bony fish into a tender fillet is quite possible.

The best carp dishes

There are also special recipes for cooking carp, based on the fact that this fish contains a lot of small bones; one of the most famous among such carp dishes is Chinese.

Ingredients:

• 1 fish weighing about 1.2 kg,
• corn starch,
• vegetable oil,
• a handful of pine nuts,
• fresh green peas,

Ingredients for the sauce:

• 6 tbsp each cold water and ketchup/tomato paste,
• 2-3 tbsp. Sahara,
• 1-2 tbsp. rice vinegar,
• 1 cm fresh ginger root,
• 1 leek white part,
• 1-2 tsp. corn starch,
• salt.

How to cook Chinese carp in sweet and sour sauce

Clean and gut the carp, separate the head, separate the fillet from the backbone without removing the skin, also remove the rib bones, but do all this so that the fillet with skin remains attached to the tail.

Place one fillet skin side down on a work surface, make cuts across the fillet, holding the knife at an angle, cutting to the skin, but without damaging it - this is done in the direction from head to tail.

Bread the head and fillet in starch, fry them separately in deep fat, heated to 190 degrees, place on a paper towel and dry.

For the sauce, dilute the tomato paste with water, mix with vinegar, salt, sugar - it should taste sweet and sour.

Heat vegetable oil, quickly fry finely chopped leeks and ginger, add sauce, bring everything to a boil, add starch diluted in a ratio of 1 to 1 with water and thicken the sauce by pouring 2-3 tablespoons into it. oil remaining in deep frying.

Place the fish head on on a plate, pour over the sauce, sprinkle with the pot and toasted nuts.

Carp with vegetables is also very tasty.

Ingredients:

• 1-2 fish,
• 250 ml sour cream,
• 100 g smoked lard,
• 6-7 potato tubers,
• 3 bell peppers,
• 2-3 tomatoes,
• 3 onions,
• ground red pepper,
• butter,
• flour,
• salt.

How to cook carp with vegetables in the oven

Cut the fillet with rib bones and skin into portions, stuff the fish with lard, rub with pepper and salt.

Cut the potatoes into pieces, boil until half cooked, place in a greased frying pan, place pieces of fish on top, then chopped tomatoes, onions and peppers.

Pour melted butter over everything and bake until done in an oven preheated to 200-220 degrees, topping with sour cream mixed with flour at the end.

Carp with vegetables in the oven is ready. Bon appetit.

It is very simple and tasty to cook carp in wine.

Ingredients:

• 200 ml red wine,
• 500 g potatoes,
• 1-2 onions,
• 1 fish,
• 1 clove of garlic,
• pepper,
• greenery,
• salt.

How to cook carp in wine

Clean the fish, rinse, cut into small pieces, rub with pepper and salt, roll in flour, fry on both sides until browned.

Finely chop the onion, chop the garlic, add to the fish, pour in a little water and wine, pepper, cover with a lid and simmer until tender. Sprinkle with herbs when serving.

Royal fried carp

Ingredients:

• 700 g fish fillet,
• 3 glasses of milk,
• 2 eggs,
• 4 tbsp. vegetable oil,
• 2 tbsp each flour and breadcrumbs,
• salt.

How to cook fried carp

Rinse the fillet, cut it into portions, pour milk and leave for half an hour.

Salt the flour, roll the fillet pieces in it, dip them immediately into the beaten egg, and bread them in breadcrumbs. Fry the fillet on both sides until browned for 15 minutes.

It would seem that the name is Royal Fried Carp, but in fact it is such a simple method of preparation.

However, this often happens with this fish - after all, it is really a very tasty fish that is difficult to spoil. Having learned to cope with the main problem of carp - the abundance of bones, you will be able to prepare the most appetizing dishes from this wonderful fish.

• To prepare carp fillets with sauce or cutlets with fillets, the rib bones are cut off, but for cutlets, as well as rolls, you can prepare the carp differently - gut it without peeling the scales, cut off the fillet on both sides, removing the skin and scales, and the remaining bones, heads, tails and fins are used to prepare broth (the gills must be removed).
• The fish is prepared either whole or cut into pieces weighing 100 g. If pieces of carp weigh more than 500 g, they should be placed in cold water, and smaller pieces should be placed in boiling water. It is believed that carp cooked in large pieces is tastier and juicier.
• When cooking fish, the water should be at a constant low simmer. Cook it whole with a weight of 1-1.5 kg for 50-60 minutes, in pieces of 100-150 g, 15-20 minutes of cooking is enough until ready.
• Small carp need to be cooked whole, large ones - in pieces; it is believed that it tastes better if you fry the fish with the skin.
• Fried carp will turn out tastier if, after cleaning and washing it, then cutting it, put it in 15-20 minutes of salted and peppered milk, after that it is breaded in flour and fried - best in a cast-iron frying pan with a lot of butter until golden brown and covered cover and cook until done.
• Fatty carp can be stuffed with leaner pike or pike perch.
• It goes very well with minced meat, best of all with pork, this combination is suitable for making cutlets and meatballs, the proportions of fish and minced meat are one to one.

Useful video: How to cook carp with herbs

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