Tips and features for cleaning carp before cooking. How to clean carp: tips for housewives, preparing fish for cooking, interesting recipes for fish dishes How to clean carp at home

Carp is a tasty, moderately fatty freshwater fish. You can prepare various dishes from it; fish pie is especially tasty. Due to the fact that the scales of this fish fit very tightly to the body, not every housewife knows how to clean carp correctly. Because of this, the kitchen area often requires a thorough cleaning after cutting carp. But knowing some secrets you can avoid such consequences. It must be cleaned fresh and in three stages: preparation, removal of scales, removal of entrails.

Preparing fresh fish

Carp lives in fresh water bodies; most often this fish ends up on the table from a store or as a fisherman’s catch. If it was caught with bait, then the latter needs to be removed from the throat; this can be done by directing a stream of water there, which will wash away all the excess. You also need to remove the gills from the head, where bacteria begin to multiply first. All this is necessary if the preparation requires the presence of a head, otherwise it can simply be cut off later.

The carcass must be thoroughly washed to remove silt and the slimy coating that protects the scales. To do this, simply rinse the carp under running water. It is also worth cutting off the fins first so that they do not interfere when the time comes to clean the carp from scales. They can easily hurt you.

Removing scales

At this stage, it is most difficult to clean carp, so you must know how to properly remove scales from the fish. It is best to use a special fish cleaning device for this. They have sharp serrations that easily separate even the toughest scales. Such devices are sold in stores or can be made independently.

During cleaning, the scales fly in different directions. To avoid this, housewives recommend cleaning in a basin of water so that the scales remain in it. Either place the fish inside the bag and put your hands in there to clean it inside, so all the cleaning will remain there.

Advice! To more easily and effortlessly separate the scales from the fish, it must be placed in boiling water. The time required to achieve the desired effect is no more than 1 minute, otherwise the carp will be cooked.

Scales from large fresh carp can be removed with a knife. To do this, place the fish on a cutting board and, pressing down on the tail, clean the carcass with sharp movements. But it is in this case that the housewife finds herself in a situation where, after she has cleaned the carp, she needs to clean out the kitchen. Therefore, the above measures should be taken.

We cut the carcass

Having ensured that both sides of the carcass are thoroughly cleaned, you can begin cutting it up. To do this, you need to put it on a cutting board and cut into the abdominal cavity. From there, you should carefully remove the entrails so as not to damage the gall bladder, otherwise it will ruin the taste of the meat.

And it is also important to remove the dark film that covers the abdominal cavity from the inside. Cut off the head. After this, the fish must be thoroughly rinsed under running water. If the dish requires it, you can separate the fillet from the bone. To do this, you need to make cuts parallel to the spine, reaching the ribs without damaging them. Then run a knife under the ribs to remove the flesh from them. After this, cut the fillet from the tail section.

Now this process will not cause any difficulties for anyone. And everyone can enjoy this delicious lake fish.

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 require careful handling. If the fish was caught independently, then, if possible, it should be cleaned directly in nature. This will not affect the taste of the product in any way, but will save you from a lot of hassle.

Features of mandatory training

There won’t be many problems with cleaning carp if you organize the process correctly and it all starts with preparation. First of all, you need to choose the right tool. The scales of the fish are large and fit quite tightly. In order not to spend too much time removing them, it is better to arm yourself with a vegetable peeler or a specialized device. As a last resort, you can get by with a fork, spoon or the blunt side of a knife. Using a homemade grater gives good results. We simply nail several metal threaded plugs to a wooden plank and place the workpiece on a comfortable handle.

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

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

We move all the tools to the bathroom. This is the optimal place for cleaning carp; everything in the kitchen will be covered with scales.
The fish must be thoroughly moistened with cool water; it is very difficult to remove dried scales.
We cut the fins in advance with scissors. They are quite sharp and you can get hurt when handling them.

If it is obvious that the scales adhere very tightly to the surface of the skin, the carp should be scalded with boiling water or immersed in hot water for 20-30 seconds. Just don’t process the fish for too long, it will start to cook.

Cleaning carp from scales

There are no specific recommendations for removing scales from the surface of carp. There are only a few suggestions for organizing the process, the observance of which will allow minimal staining of everything around and reduce the procedure time:

The easiest way to clean fish is by placing it in a container of water. But you don’t need to fill the bathtub for this; it’s better to use a large basin. Large scales can clog the drain.

Tip: The gills and insides of carp are places where bacteria actively multiply. Fish should be cleaned immediately after purchasing or catching, otherwise its taste will steadily deteriorate.

If the carcasses are small, they are cleaned inside a plastic bag. After manipulation, you only need to throw away the contents and rinse the workpieces.
It is better to nail a large fish to a wooden base and pull it firmly by the head. Then we clean, moving from the tail to the head.

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

How to properly gut carp?

After the fish has been scaled, 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, the thick brown film, cut out the gills or completely cut off the head. All that remains is to thoroughly rinse the workpiece under cold running water and you can begin heat treating it.

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

Each of us has faced the problem of cleaning fresh fish. When fish appears in the house, in our case it will be freshwater-lake fish, raised in artificial reservoirs for industrial purposes, a very useful carp fish. There are several types of this delicious fish - from mirror carp, which has practically no scales, to ordinary freshwater carp, before cooking which we are faced with the problem of how to clean the carp?

Carp is a special fish, with small scales and requires delicate cleaning to remove the protective layer. We will now look at several options for cleaning carp.

Where to begin?

Take the carp and rinse it thoroughly under high pressure of water - this will give you the opportunity to completely wash off all the dirt and accumulated mucus from it.

If your carp was not purchased at the market or in a store, but was caught in a pond using some kind of fishing gear, then you still need to remove the bait from its mouth. Carp is not a picky fish and is caught not only with corn or peas, but also with worms and maggots. Accordingly, you are unlikely to like it if you find such a surprise in the finished dish.

To do this, you just need to expose him with his mouth open to a high pressure of water, under the pressure of which everything unnecessary will be washed away, or resort to the help of some kind of hook. Please note that this procedure is necessary if you cook the whole carp and do not cut off its head.

Once you have washed off the dirt and cleared the carp's mouth of any bait, you can begin the main step of cleaning the carp.

Important! Even if you decide to cook carp without a head, under no circumstances rush to cut off its head before cleaning, as during the cleaning process it will be uncomfortable for you to hold it and the carcass will slip out.

How to clean carp? — Quick and easy ways

The procedure for cleaning carp is actually not very complicated, unlike predatory river and sea fish species. Let's look at several options for cleaning carp.

Option 1

To clean the carp, we need a cutting board and a sharp knife:

Place the carp, previously cleaned of dirt and mucus, on a cutting board.
Since carp have small scales, they will scatter in different directions during cleaning. To avoid this, you can place the fish in a large container - a bucket, basin, sink, or put the carp in a plastic bag and clean it in the middle.
Starting from the tail, with short sharp movements, prying up the scales, we move towards the head.
To prevent the fish from sliding on the board, you should apply a little force to the knife and, to prevent it from slipping out of your hands, hold the carp by the gills.
First, we completely clean one side from the tail to the head, then the other, and only after that proceed to cutting the abdominal cavity, having first washed the carp of scales so that they do not get into the middle of the fish.

Important! You shouldn’t press the knife too hard on the fish, as you can damage the carcass itself. The abdominal cavity may rupture, making further cleaning difficult.

Option 2

In order to clean carp without resorting to all kinds of improvised means in the form of basins and pans, it is enough to place it in boiled water for 45-60 seconds (depending on the size of the fish). Do not keep the carcass in water longer than this time, otherwise you will get it already cooked and you will not be able to prepare your favorite dish from it.

Important! After the procedure, the carp scales will become soft and docile for further mechanical processing. It will be easy for you to clean the scales, which will no longer fly around under a slight pressure of water.

Cleaning the abdominal cavity of carp

We looked at two options for how to clean carp from scales, and now let's move on to cutting the abdominal cavity of your fish. For this:

Place the carcass again on a cutting board, after brushing it with lemon juice. Lemon juice will protect your board from the corrosive smell of fish. You can also soak your hands in juice or wear protective gloves.
Take a sharp knife and make two small transverse cuts - near the head and at the end of the abdominal cavity closer to the tail, and make a large longitudinal cut from head to tail, ripping open the belly of the carcass.
Carefully remove the liver and gall bladder so that it does not rupture. If you were unable to do this carefully, rub the places where the bile got in with salt or cut them out.
Then remove all remaining insides and rinse with water.

Important! To prevent the fish from slipping out of your hands, you need to rub the scales with salt and periodically dip your fingers in the salt.

The last stage of cleaning

All we have to do is remove the unnecessary fish fins. We do it like this:

The upper fin is removed using two lateral longitudinal cuts.
The side fins do not need to be cut, but simply pulled out.
We remove the lower rear fin in the same way as the upper one, only the cuts are made deeper, since the fin itself is located deep in the tail part of the fish and is the driving mechanism.

The only thing left to do, if you cook the fish whole, is to cut out the gills and eyes with a knife. So we looked at ways to clean carp. Now, if you haven’t figured out how to cook it yet, we offer a few simple recipes so that you can have a delicious dish for an everyday home dinner or a holiday table.

There are a lot of different recipes for how to cook carp and any other fish. You can find them in special cookbooks and on the Internet. Based on your own skills, imagination and free time, you can prepare absolutely any of the dishes offered to you. To simplify the task of not only cleaning carp, but also preparing it, we have selected several options that we think are interesting. We hope you decide to put them into practice.

Baked carp with vegetables

Baked fish with vegetables is not only tasty, but also a dietary dish. And preparing it will not take much of your time and will not require significant financial expenses, since you will most likely find most of the products in your refrigerator.

Products:

1 carp
100 grams of smoked lard.
250 ml sour cream.
3-4 bell peppers.
7-8 pieces of potatoes.
3 onions.
3-4 tomatoes.
100 grams of butter.
Ground red pepper.
Flour.
Salt.

Cooking method:

Cut the carp along the ribs into pieces and stuff the rib part with lard.
Rub with pepper and salt.
Cut the potatoes into small pieces and cook until half cooked.
Afterwards, place the potatoes in a hot frying pan, greased with oil, and place the fish on top. Finally, add a layer of tomatoes, peppers and onions.
Pour melted butter over all this and bake in the oven at a temperature of 220-250 degrees until cooked, at the end generously sprinkled with mixed flour and sour cream.

Carp aspic

Jellied is an amazingly tender and beautiful dish if prepared correctly. And this is very easy to do if you follow the following recipe.

Products:

Cooking method:

Place the carp pieces on a plate, skin side up, and pour boiling vinegar over them.
Cut the celery and parsley roots into small pieces. Cook with the addition of bay leaves and cloves over low heat for 10-15 minutes.
Place the carp in the resulting broth and cook for another 15-20 minutes.
Soak gelatin in cold water. When the grains become transparent, you need to drain the excess water and combine the gelatin with the broth.
Boil all this, strain, cool.
Separate the fish fillet from the bone and place in the pan.
Pour in the jelly, let cool and harden.

Important! When serving, you can decorate with lemon slices and herbs.

Good to know about fish:

We hope that from this article you received the necessary information on how to clean and cook carp and were able to cope with the idea of cooking without much hassle.

It’s rare that a fisherman returns 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 holiday table. With it you can create 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 correctly, and in what ways it can be cooked.

The carp family is extensive and they all share one common property - a large number of bones and mucus. But its meat is tasty, slightly sweet in taste. Therefore, the taste and aroma of the future dish depends on proper preparation of the fish.

Many people consider this fish to be of little use and not containing 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 in it alone that it is recommended in the diet of 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, when you bring fish from fishing or from the store, you need to cut it up 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.

Nowadays, many stores offer a service for cleaning fish from scales as a bonus for buying carp. Many housewives will agree that this is the most difficult and unpleasant part of preparing fish before cooking.

To clean fish from scales, you need a regular sharp kitchen knife or a special knife for cleaning fish.

Place the fish on a cutting board and carefully clean the scales, starting from the tail and gradually moving towards the head.

Cut through the abdomen, making a cut from the anus to the head. Try to cut so as not to damage the intestines of the fish. Remove all entrails.

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

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

Rinse the fish well with cool water, thoroughly washing out the fish's cavity and gills.

How to fillet carp

It is best to fillet carp without skin when it is slightly frozen. If the carp has not been cleaned beforehand, remove its scales.

Place the carp on a cutting board and, holding it firmly with your hand, use a sharp knife to make cuts just behind the gills.

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

Cut the tail fillet between the meat and the skin and, holding it with your hand, separate the meat from the skin. Turn the fillet over and cut off the white membrane.

Cut out the large rib bones.

Separate the fillet on the other side.

Now all that remains is to cut it into portions.

How to get rid of odor

Like many other river or pond fish, carp have a not very pleasant smell of mud. In principle, properly cut and prepared carp smells less, but the smell still remains. Especially when the fish is cooked with scales.

The easiest way to reduce the smell of mud is to sprinkle the carcass with lemon juice before cooking.

You can remove the smell of mud by pre-soaking the fish in milk half an hour to an hour before cooking. You can also add aromatic herbs and spices there.

Removes odor and ordinary table 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 dry with a paper towel.

If you don’t have time to get rid of the smell by soaking the fish, just sprinkle the already cooked fish with a large amount of fresh dill.

Before you cook carp, you need to buy it. And it is important to buy fresh fish. The ideal option is to purchase from a large chain store that has a special aquarium. Here you will catch live carp. Another plus is that it may have less mucus and mud smell.

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’s not for nothing that they call it the “river pig.” He is not very picky about what he eats.

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

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

To have fewer bones, you can cut out this part of the fillet or make notches. Watch the video to see how the bones are cut out and which part of the fillet has no bones.

There are quite a lot of recipes on how to cook it. Carp can be:

Fry in a pan;

Bake in the oven and on the grill;

Steam.

Moreover, both in portioned pieces and whole.

The most delicious carp is baked. Also less caloric.

It is better to cook carp in the oven by wrapping it in foil. This way the fish turns out juicy and flavorful.

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

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

When preparing breaded carp, fry it in a large amount of oil or fat.

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

How to fillet carp without bones, watch the video

Carp is an artificially bred fish species; in nature, the carp's closest relative is the carp. China is considered the homeland of carp, where Chinese emperors loved to feast on dishes made from this fish. Over time, carp came to Europe, where it is currently bred on an industrial scale and is highly valued in cooking. To make the dish tasty, the carp must be properly cleaned and cut.

Carp is a large and healthy fish

Carp meat is very healthy, as it contains many different minerals, vitamins and other substances necessary for the normal functioning of the human body. The presence of iodine in meat improves blood composition, normalizes metabolism, and prevents endocrine disorders. The high phosphorus content has a beneficial effect on the functioning of brain cells. The meat of this fish contains antioxidants that preserve our youth and protect the body's cells from the negative effects of free radicals. Eating carp is recommended for people watching their weight - the meat is well absorbed by the body and satiates without extra calories.

Cleaning fresh carp at home

Carp, whether large mirror carp, which is covered with a small amount of scales, or ordinary freshwater carp, which is covered with small scales, requires cleaning before cooking. A regular knife will do for this procedure. If you do not have the necessary skills, take a knife that is not very sharp. To avoid injury, you can use a spoon or fork. To clean fish, they also use metal scrapers, which you can buy in a store, or a vegetable peeler with a longitudinal blade - with it the work will be easier and faster.

How to clean live fish quickly and accurately

Before cleaning, the carp must be thoroughly rinsed with cold water to remove mucus and dirt. If the mucus is not washed off, the fish will slide along the surface - the cleaning process will be difficult.

If the carp is cooked without the head, do not cut it off before cleaning, because it is convenient to hold the fish while doing work.

You can clean the carp on the kitchen table, but in this case the scales will fly to the sides, and then you will have to clean them up for a long time. To prevent this from happening, it is recommended to clean the carp from scales in water - directly in the sink or in a suitable-sized container. You can place the carp in a tight bag and clean it inside the bag, then the scales will remain there.

You need to clean the fish in the direction from the tail to the head, holding it by the tail.

Before you start cleaning, place the washed carp in a suitable container and pour boiling water on both sides - the scales will soften and it will be easy to clean.
We place the carp with its head towards us, hold it by the tail and, in the direction from the tail to the head, clean the fish on both sides with a knife or scraper.
Wash the carp well.

How to clean a carcass from scales using the “removal of chain mail” method

This cleaning method requires a sharp knife with a thin and long blade.

We insert a knife from the side of the tail between the skin and scales.
The knife used to remove scales using this method should be thin and sharp.
We trim the scales, gradually moving the knife forward. It is advisable not to immediately cut through the scales - they stretch and the knife does not damage the skin.
We cut off the place where the scales attach to the bone near the head - we get “chain mail”.
We repeat the process on the other side.

How to cut carp

After the carp is scaled, it must be properly cut. The process involves removing the entrails, gills, fins, and preparing the fillets.

How to gut it properly

How to cut this fish

Video: filleting carp without gutting

Before cutting into fillets, the carp also needs to be washed and scaled, but you don’t have to gut it.

Cleaning and cutting frozen fish

Frozen fish must be thawed before cleaning and cutting. To preserve as many useful substances as possible, the fish is placed in water with added salt at the rate of one teaspoon per kilogram of defrosted product. Otherwise, you need to proceed in the same way as with live fish.

As you can see, the process of cleaning and cutting carp is not that complicated. Let dishes prepared from this tasty and healthy fish decorate your table both on weekdays and on holidays.