We clean and cut carp at home. How to clean and butcher carp at home How to butcher carp and get rid of small bones

Rarely does a fisherman return from fishing without catching a carp. Carp is the most common river fish. It is prepared not only on weekdays, but is often served as the main dish on the festive table. With it, you can create the most real culinary masterpieces. But it all starts with cutting the fish. In this article, we will tell you how to cook this fish, how to cut it properly, in what ways you can cook it.

The family of carp is vast and they all have one thing in common - a large number of bones and mucus. But its meat is tasty, slightly sweetish in taste. Therefore from correct preparation fish depends on the taste and aroma of the future dish.

Many consider this fish to be of little use and does not contain any useful substances. How wrong they are. Carp meat contains:

Saturated fatty acids;

Vitamins, including group B;

And this is not a complete list of all nutrients. There is so much iron alone in it that it is recommended in the diet for people with low hemoglobin. It is also necessary to take into account the calorie content, which in uncooked fish per 100 grams is only 97-100 calories.

How to clean carp

Carp, like any other fish, spoils quickly. Therefore, having brought fish from fishing or from the store, you need to cut it as quickly as possible.

If the fish is alive and you are not going to cook it right away, then it is better to place it in a bathtub or other large container with water and let it swim in it for several days. Add 1 teaspoon of salt to the water and change it every day. This trick will remove some of the mucus and improve the taste.

Now in many stores, as a bonus to the purchase of carp, there is a service for cleaning fish from scales. Many housewives will agree that this is the most difficult and unpleasant part of preparing fish before cooking.

To remove scales from fish, you need an ordinary kitchen sharp knife or a special knife for cleaning fish.

Place the fish on a cutting board and carefully peel the scales, starting at the tail and working your way up to the head.

Cut open the abdomen, making an incision from the anus to the head. Try to cut so as not to damage the intestines of the fish. Remove all insides.

If you don't use the head, just cut it off and discard it. If you cook fish headlong, use a knife to remove the eyes and cut out the gills.

Use scissors to cut off the fins. In large fish, the upper dorsal fin can be very difficult to cut with a knife or scissors. Use a kitchen hatchet. You can make shallow V cuts around the dorsal fins and cut them out.

Rinse the fish well with cool water, thoroughly flushing the fish cavity and gills.

How to cut carp into fillets

Cutting carp into fillets without skin is best done when it is slightly frozen. If the carp has not been previously cleaned, clean it from the scales.

Place the carp on a cutting board and hold firmly with your hand and make cuts just behind the gills with a sharp knife.

Make an incision along the back of the fish's body, starting from the head to the tail. Raise the fish to make it easier to cut, and slide the knife along the rib bones to separate the fillets. Cut off the fillet from the tail side.

Slice the fillet from the tail between the meat and the skin and hold with your hand to separate the meat from the skin. Turn the fillets over and cut off the white foil.

Cut out the rib bones.

Separate the fillet on the other side.

Now all that remains is to cut it into portions.

How to get rid of the smell

Like many other river or pond fish, carp have an unpleasant odor of mud. In principle, properly cut and prepared carp smell less, but still the smell remains. Especially when the fish is cooked with scales.

The easiest way to reduce the sludge odor is to drizzle lemon juice over the carcass before cooking.

You can remove the odor of mud by soaking the fish half an hour or an hour before cooking in milk. Aromatic herbs and spices can also be added there.

Removes odor and regular vinegar. To do this, add a tablespoon of vinegar to one liter of cold water and soak the fish in it for 2 hours. After soaking, rinse well and pat dry with a paper towel.

If there is no time at all to get rid of the smell by soaking the fish, simply sprinkle the already cooked with plenty of fresh dill.

Before you can cook carp, you need to buy it. And it's important to get fresh fish. The ideal option is to buy in a large chain store that has a special aquarium. Live carp will be caught here. Another plus is that it may have less mucus and the smell of mud.

If the fish is already dead, pay attention to the eyes and gills. The eyes should be light, not cloudy. The gills are red.

To have fewer small bones, it is better to buy carp weighing 1.5-2 kilograms. Larger carp are older and can accumulate substances hazardous to health. It is not for nothing that they call him "river pig". He is not very picky about food.

When cutting fish, try to clean and wash all the insides as much as possible. They can give an unpleasant, bitter taste.

When cooking carp in the oven, if it has not been previously soaked, put a lot of fresh dill in the belly. It removes the smell.

To have fewer seeds, you can cut this part of the fillet or make notches. Watch in the video how the bones are cut and in which part of the fillet there are no bones.

How to cook it - there are a lot of recipes. Carp can be:

Fry in a pan;

Bake in the oven and grill;

Steam.

Moreover, both in portions and whole.

The most delicious carp is baked. Moreover, it is less high-calorie.

It is better to cook carp in the oven by wrapping it in foil. This makes the fish juicy and aromatic.

To get a beautiful golden crust in 10-12 minutes, you need to unfold it.

It is better to place the fish in an already preheated oven.

When cooking breaded carp, you need to fry it in a lot of oil or fat.

As a side dish, you can serve mashed potatoes, stewed vegetables, rice and more. It goes well with any side dish and almost any vegetable.

How to cut carp into boneless fillets, see the video

Carp, or carp, is a river fish that is famous for its abundance of dense but tasty meat and a special approach to processing bones. Before cleaning carp, you need to familiarize yourself with a number of specific points. Despite the apparent density of scales and skin, these individuals need careful handling. If the fish was caught on their own, then, if possible, it should be cleaned directly in nature. This will not affect the taste of the product, but it will save you from a lot of trouble.

Features of compulsory training

There will not be many problems with cleaning carp if you organize the process correctly and everything starts with preparation. First of all, you need to choose the right tool. The scales of the fish are large, they sit quite tightly. In order not to spend too much time removing them, it is better to arm yourself with a vegetable peeler or a profile device. As a last resort, you can get by with a fork, spoon, or the blunt side of a knife. A good result is the use of a homemade grater. We just nail a few threaded metal plugs to a wooden board and place the workpiece on a comfortable handle.

Tip: If the fish is very large, the meat will be harsh. To soften the product, after cleaning and eviscerating it should be soaked for half an hour in very fresh and low-fat milk. Even in the case of small fish, this will not be superfluous.

In addition, the preparation process will include the following points:

1. All tools are transferred to the bathroom. This is the best place for cleaning carp, everything in the kitchen will be covered with scales.
2. The fish must be thoroughly moistened with cool water; it is very difficult to remove dried scales.
3. Cut the fins in advance with scissors. They are quite sharp and can cause injury during handling.

If it is obvious that the scales adhere very tightly to the surface of the skin, scald the carp with boiling water or immerse it in hot water for 20-30 seconds. Just do not process the fish for too long, it will start to cook.

We clean carp from scales

There are no special recommendations for removing scales from the carp surface. There are only a few wishes for the organization of the process, the observance of which will allow you to minimize everything around and reduce the time of the procedure:

• The easiest way to clean the fish is by placing it in a container of water. But you do not need to fill the bathtub for this, it is better to use a large basin. Large scales can clog the drain.

Tip: The gills and entrails of carp are places where bacteria actively reproduce. The fish should be cleaned immediately after purchase or fishing, otherwise its taste will steadily deteriorate.

• If the carcasses are small, they are cleaned inside a plastic bag. After manipulation, you will only need to discard the contents and rinse the blanks.
• It is better to nail a large fish to a wooden base and pull strongly on its head. Then we carry out cleaning, moving from the tail to the head.

During the manipulation, especially problem areas are scalded with boiling water, and if the fish is slippery, rub it with salt.

How to gut carp correctly?

After the fish has been cleaned of scales, it must be gutted. To do this, lay the carcass belly up and rip it open with a sharp knife, making a shallow cut from head to tail. We remove the insides, a dense brown film, cut out the gills or completely cut off the head. It remains only to thoroughly rinse the workpiece under cold running water and you can proceed to its heat treatment.

All the time before cooking, the fish should be kept in the refrigerator or cold water. It should not be left at room temperature, even for a few minutes, as this can negatively affect the aroma and taste of the meat. Only a thoroughly washed product, dried with paper towels, can be put into the refrigerator.

The breeds in our country are quite common. You can cook many delicious dishes from carp. But before you start implementing any recipe, you need to competently and quickly get rid of the inedible elements of this fish. Few know how to clean carp properly. It has a very dense cover of small scales. It is very difficult to remove these scales from the fish. Therefore, the question of how to clean carp quickly and correctly remains always relevant. The fishermen themselves and their wives are trying to come up with new tricks that would help them in such a useful and not very pleasant activity. Fans of home-made fish dishes sometimes have a hard time.

Multi-step cleaning methods

Through trial and error, methods have been invented on how to wash carp from the mucus present on its carcass, and how to clean carp from scales and other inedible parts. We list the most popular of them, often used by the people, due to their availability and effectiveness.

Carp are cleaned in three approaches. But before cleaning the fish, they first prepare it, wash it from mucus and dirt. Then the scales are removed from the surface of the fish carcass. The final step in cleaning carp will be to get rid of giblets and rinse the cleaned product.

My fish

Carp must be rinsed with plenty of cold water. It is more convenient to do this under pressure. During this procedure, you need to cut off all the fins using large kitchen scissors.

Wipe the washed fish with a clean rag or paper towels.

How to clean carp from scales quickly and without harm to the kitchen

Actually, there is a special device that allows you to remove the dense scales from the fish, without making a lot of effort. The device looks like a grater, with the help of which the scales are peeled off. The process is easy and does not create as much debris as if using a regular knife. However, this device can also wreak havoc in your kitchen.

A basin of water

How to clean carp to keep the kitchen clean too? During the procedure using a knife or special devices, shiny scales still fly around the kitchen. In the future, while the hostess fiddles with dry out and stick quite tightly to surfaces. This makes it difficult to remove them from dishes and walls. A method was invented how to clean carp in water.

For this, a deep basin is filled with cold water and the cleaning itself is performed in this basin. We lower the fish into it and clean off the dense, firmly adhered scales with water.

Polyethylene bag

For those who do not like to spend a lot of time in the water (during the cleaning process), the following method is suitable. For example, how to clean carp in a plastic bag. To do this, the carcass of the fish is placed in a spacious bag so that you can freely work in it with your hands; the scales are cleaned in the bag. After finishing processing the fish, the bag must be tightly tied and sent to the trash.

For easier removal of the scales from the fish, use the following trick - dip the fish in boiling water, hold it for a little while and start cleaning. Do not overdo it, otherwise you will get the ear earlier than you expected: the fish can be boiled in boiling water.

We get rid of giblets and cut fish

And now about how to clean carp from giblets. When the outside of the fish looks more appetizing, we start cutting the carcass. We cut through the abdomen with a knife and clean out all the insides. You need to be especially careful with the gallbladder; if you pierce it, the taste of the fish will irreparably deteriorate. Pay special attention to removing the dark film lining the belly of the fish. This film also spoils the taste, so we remove it with passion, but so as not to damage the pulp.

The final step will be to remove the head and rinse the carp carcass. Cut it into pieces if necessary.

Carp in sweet and sour sauce

Products:

• cut carp - not less than a kilogram;
• corn starch;
• vegetable oil without aroma;
• a handful of pine nuts (peeled) - optional.

For the sauce:

• half a glass of cold water and tomato sauce, you can take ketchup;
• 2 tablespoons of sugar;
• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
• fresh ginger root - about one centimeter;
• white part of leeks - 1 piece;
• 1-2 small spoons of starch (corn);
• salt to taste.

Technological process

Separate the fillet from the gutted carp from the backbone. This must be done in such a way that the skin and some of the pulp still remain attached to the tail.

Lay the fillet skin side down on the table surface and make several cuts in it at an angle. It is important not to damage the skin of the carp, then the dish will turn out to be more beautiful. Repeat this procedure with both sides of the fillet.

Breaded fish meat and head in starch and fry in vegetable oil. If you don't like the head of the fish that will be in the cooked dish, you can skip using it.

Cooking the sauce

To prepare the sauce, mix the tomato paste and water in a bowl until smooth. In the process of mixing the paste with water, you need to add sugar, salt and vinegar to the future sauce. Its taste should be sweet and sour. Add sugar or salt (or vinegar) of your preference as needed.

Heat the vegetable oil in a frying pan and add the ginger and onion, cut into small pieces. Pour the prepared starch into the pan. To do this, you need to dilute it in water in a one-to-one ratio (how many spoons of starch, so many spoons of water). Bring the resulting mixture to a boil and add the remaining oil from frying the fillet. Boil the tomato sauce for about five minutes.

Serving the dish

Place fish with or without a head on a flat dish. Top the fried carp with a delicate sweet and sour sauce and garnish with nuts. There are practically no restrictions in decorating a dish. You can add vegetables to the sauce, and then there will be no need for nuts.

Fried carp

Pour the pieces of fish with milk for thirty minutes. At this time, prepare a batter of three eggs. You also need to prepare two tablespoons of breadcrumbs and flour. Salt.

Remove the carp pieces from the milk and roll in salted flour. Then dip in a beaten egg and roll again, this time in bread crumbs. Place the fish in a frying pan with hot vegetable oil. Fry carp on both sides until golden brown. This will take approximately 15 minutes.

Carp in our country is a fairly common fish, many have tried and love it, because it is a delicious and versatile fish, from which you can prepare a lot of wonderful dishes. We will tell you 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 artificially bred. That is, such a fish simply did not exist in nature, and carp is an artificially bred carp breed brought from China to Europe in the 12th century. Today he lives in ponds and rivers around the world, and several breeds have been bred - scaly, mirror, frame, naked. It is not found only in the waters of South America, the islands 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, because of this, you should not refuse dishes from this fish - there are many ways and tricks on how to cut carp quickly and without unnecessary problems. In addition, it is not only generally available, but also inexpensive, has tasty juicy meat, slightly fatty, so a 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 already at home:

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

How to clean carp scales

If it is not possible to clean the carp right away in the store, then you should not despair, you can easily do it yourself. Do not be intimidated by the old grandfather's methods when it was peeled with a knife against the scales and the whole kitchen was dirty. There is a simple proven way to remove scales from carp.

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

And now for the fun part:

How to butcher carp and get rid of small bones?

In China, the homeland of carp, its fillet, after cleaning from large bones, is simply ground into minced meat, and in the process of cooking, the ground small bones soften and partially dissolve.

If the fish is cooked whole, then even in this case, you can cope 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 criss-cross - the more frequent the cuts you make, the more small bones will be crushed and softened during the heat treatment.

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

The next way to cut carp into fillets will also help get rid of small bones.

How to cut carp into fillets

• cut off your head,
• along the ridge, cut the fish in half lengthwise into two halves,
• cut off the ridge, fin and adjacent small bones,
• cut out the rib bones neatly in one layer,
• with your fingers, feel the groove with sharp bones in the fillet, step back 5 mm to the left of 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 a strip of bones from the skin,
• also remove small bones in the tail of the fish.

As you can see, if you are ready to take the time to cut carp and remove the bones, then it is quite possible to turn the fish from bony into tender fillet.

The best carp dishes

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

Ingredients:

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

Ingredients for the sauce:

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

How to cook Chinese Carp in Sweet and Sour Sauce

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

Lay one fillet on the working surface down with the skin, 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 the head to the tail.

Breaded the head and fillets in starch, fry them separately, heated to 190 degrees, put 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 the vegetable oil, quickly fry the finely chopped leek and ginger, add the sauce, bring everything to a boil, add the starch diluted in a ratio of 1 to 1 with water and thicken the sauce, pouring 2-3 tablespoons into it. oil left in deep fat.

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

Carp with vegetables is also very tasty.

Ingredients:

• 1-2 fish,
• 250 ml sour cream,
• 100 g smoked bacon,
• 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 bacon, rub with pepper and salt.

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

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

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

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

Ingredients:

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

How to cook carp in wine

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

Finely chop the onion, chop the garlic, put it on the fish, pour in a little water and wine, pepper, close the 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 tablespoons vegetable oil,
• 2 tbsp. flour and bread crumbs,
• salt.

How to cook fried carp

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

Salt flour, roll fillet pieces in it, dip them immediately into a beaten egg, breaded in breadcrumbs. Fry fillets on both sides until browning for 15 minutes.

It would seem that such a name is Royal fried carp, but in fact it is such a simple way of cooking.

However, this often happens in relation to this fish - after all, it is really very tasty fish that is difficult to spoil. Having learned how to cope with the main problem of carp - an abundance of bones, you can prepare the most delicious 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 - without removing the scales, gut, cut off fillets from both sides, removing the skin with scales, and the remaining bones, heads, tails and fins are used to make broth (gills must be removed).
• The fish is prepared both whole and by cutting into pieces of 100 g in weight. If the carp pieces weigh more than 500 g, they should be placed in cold water, and the smaller ones should be placed in boiling water. It is believed that carp cooked in large pieces is the tastiest and most juicy of all.
• When boiling fish, the water should constantly boil slightly. Cook it whole with a weight of 1-1.5 kg for 50-60 minutes, in pieces of 100-150 g until cooked, 15-20 minutes of cooking is enough.
• Small carp need to be cooked whole, large carp - in pieces, it is believed that it turns out tastier if you fry fish with skin.
• Fried carp will be tastier if, after peeling and washing, then slicing, put in 15-20 in salted and peppered milk, after which it is breaded in flour and fried - best in a cast-iron pan with a lot of oil until blush and, covering lid, bring to readiness.
• 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 proportion of fish and minced meat is one to one.

Useful video: How to cook carp with herbs

Author of the article "How to cook carp"

Carp is an appetizing river fish with small scales that must be removed by scrubbing. This fish requires gentle handling, so many people have a question: how to clean carp? Here we need a system that takes into account all the subtleties and difficulties that may arise in the process of work.

When the carcass is cleaned in the kitchen in an apartment or in a house, then after that it takes a lot of time and effort to wash the workplace from the scales, as it flies in all directions. But this can be avoided.

Cleaning tool

Usually a standard kitchen knife is used to peel carp. For people who have not come across this seemingly difficult task, it is better to use a blunt knife, spoon or fork. There are also special tools on sale - fish scrapers. They are very easy to use.

Also for this work, you can use a special grater made by yourself. Tin beer caps are nailed to a wooden plank. A good grater will come out of a can with holes in the bottom pierced with a nail.

To free the carcass from scales, it is better to purchase a vegetable peeler with a longitudinal blade. It will make the task easier and make the job quick. For cleaning large and large individuals, it is better to use the bathroom. The peeler should be separate and only used for peeling fish.

Training

First of all, the carp must be rinsed under cold water, having abundantly wetted the scales. Then get back to work right away to prevent the flakes from drying out, otherwise the cleaning process will be slow and difficult.

Hard scales that are close to the skin will not be easy to remove. It is better to put such a fish in boiling water for a few minutes, the main thing is not to overdo it.

In order not to injure yourself during the procedure on the hard fins, they must be removed by cutting with kitchen scissors.

Keep fresh fish in the refrigerator without leaving it on the table for too long. After purchasing it, you need to immediately remove all the insides and gills, since this is where bacteria multiply. Before placing the carp in the refrigerator, it must be washed and wiped off with a paper towel.

How to clean fish from scales?

The main question that arises in the process of carp processing is what to do so that the scales do not fly off in different directions?

1. Many people clean the fish by dipping it in a bowl of water. The scales remain in the water and do not need to be removed afterwards.
2. You can put the carcass in a tight plastic bag and clean it there. All waste will remain inside the bag.
3. The carcass can be cleaned on the table by nailed to a wooden cutting board by the tail. The fish is pulled out, holding by the head, and calmly cleaned, starting from the tail, against the growth of scales. True, after this procedure, you will have to wash the table and kitchen utensils.

Carp processing process

1. After the cleaning process, the fish must be gutted. The carcass is laid belly up and opened with a sharp knife from head to tail.
2. Then all the viscera and the brown film inside the abdomen are removed. Depending on the type of future dish, the head of the fish is either removed completely, or the gills are pulled out of it.
3. The fish are thoroughly washed and the dish is prepared.
4. After the end of the processing process, the surface of the kitchen table and all kitchen utensils must be thoroughly rinsed with a cleaning agent, and preferably scalded.

Fresh carp are easier to clean. Having brought home a fish you bought or caught with your own hand, you should not put it in the freezer, it is better to immediately do this not very pleasant, but necessary process.