i would say remove all the red meat from fillets. soak over night in lemon and salt water. when i fry fish in a dry mix i like to dredge them through milk before shacking them in mix. also i would add to keep the fish themselves on the small side sean.

 

Thanks! Can you define "small"?

:0a31:

 

First off let me say that it has been a long time since I fixed a carp for eating and my memory might not be all it should be. I will go through the steps as I remember them though.

1: Skin and gut the fish, do not scale it.
2: Score the fish. Scoring is slicing across the fish every 1/4" to a depth of about 1/3 to 2/3 of the way through on both sides. This allows the cooking process to soften the numerous small bones. I used to score them from both directions making about 1/4" to 1/2" squares.

3. Cut the fish into about 2 to 3 inch "steaks". If you are going to grill or bake the fish then this step is not really necessary.

4. This is an approximation of the recipe we used to use:

2 cups cornmeal
1 Tablespoon flour
Salt and pepper
oil or lard to fill an iron skillet to a one-inch depth.

Coat fish with dry mix of cornmeal and flour. Place in hot oil, scored side down. Fry until golden brown, then turn to fry other side golden brown.

Note: You can also use a deep fat fryer or fish cooker to cook the fish.

We never filleted the fish because of the waste.
We also did not cut out the red line along the sides but that certainly can be done before scoring and may even improve the quality somewhat.


I am sure there will be more posts from our members in Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois that will enhance this procedure.

 

I ate some carp when I was younger. Being from Louisiana, a Cajun lady that was a neighbor of ours could cook those carp very good. I have no idea how she did it.

 

Some good ideas here. I hate seeing good food go to waste, and I know that carp can taste good. My family is also cajun, and I spent a lot of time growing up in Germany. Chances are if you're eating fish in Germany, it's carp. Only problem is I don't know how to make it taste good. Again, all of your input is -> :0a31:

 

I've eaten carp a couple of times, and if I'm feeling generous, the best I can say is that it tasted like the really cheap fishsticks you buy in a grocery store. If I'm not feeling generous, they tasted like the cardboard from a shoebox (the gray kind); in other words, pretty tasteless. However, I feel confident that if you use enough spices, seasonings, and other stuff that tastes good, you won't know the carp doesn't have any taste.
Along that line, it seems to me that carp might be a good candidate for making fish jerky, since 95% of the taste comes from the marinade you soak the fillets in before jerking them.

 

when i was a kid, my mom used to make fish patties...just like salmon patties, but she would pressure cook the carp first...that softens the bones and makes them edible...as i recall they pretty darn good. just follow salmon patty recipe after you pressure cook 'em

 

:0a36: pressure cook, mince, mix with crab meat (or ground shrimp), various herbs, salt etc. batter (or egg and buttermilk wash rolled in bread crumbs) and fry in butter. Hmm that's a thought.

 

After u bring them home u leave them in the bucket in the sun for about 3 days until they start to rot and bloat and really stink bad then u dig a hole and put them in it and cover them with about 12 inches of dirt then you plant your favorite kind of tomato plant in the loose dirt on top and that will produce some very tasty tomatoes.

 

Probably help other flowers and such grow too I bet, the wife might like that.

 

My mom used to can them in jars like you would tomatoes or green beans, they taste real simular to canned salmon that way and keep on shelf for a very long time, we would open up a jar and make pattys out of them.
There as good as salmon pattys if you haven't had salmon in a while. lol

 

sean, i would say 20in or less is small. bet you didnt expect this much carp cooking info eh. i have had the smoked carp and carp patties they are good too.

 

Sean,I lived in Germany also for many years when my dad was stationed there and later when I was and the Germans prefer carp to many fish.Our rod and gun club used to lease a small lake and stock it with rainbow trout and it also had carp in it.When we would catch carp we would throw them out on the bank and the Germans thought we were nuts but they would throw the trout back in and keep the carp.I ate many in German restuarants and they were very good but I don't know what recipes they used.

 

My dad eats a lot of them and scores them like prowler suggests to break up the pin bones. He skins his, fillets and scores them, then deep-fries them. I think the secret is the deep frying. You need about 350 deg grease and it just "melts" what's left of the bones. I've eaten quite a few that he's cooked this way and they're pretty tasty. I've scored them and pan fried 'em, but it's just not hot enough. All you end up with is fillets full of really small bones.... :sad:

 

I grew up south of Colorado Springs near a lake called Carp Lake in Widefield. The only fish in the lake was Carp (imagine that!) We never ate them we always sold them for our pocket monies, I do know they make great fertilizer cause all our Mom's had the prettiest flower beds around. Sorry I couldn't tell you how they taste, but I think Jerry said it best.

 

Here is OLD recepie that I heard of but never tried!!

1. Take a pretty good size carp and fellet it but leaving the skin ON.
2. Find an old PINE board, bout a 1"X6" or 8"
3. Preheat oven to about 450' or so.
4. Salt and pepper to taste.
5. Place fish on board and place in oven for 90 minutes.
6. Remove from oven, throw fish in trash and eat the board.


Sorry, had several bad experences with carp that "tasted like salmon".

 

LMAO Wally. I guess it is all in your expectations and what you think is good. I personally do not like oily "fishy" tasting fish but I know a lot of people that do.

 

First: Keep them alive till you are ready to clean them.
IMPORTANT: Cut both sides of the tail, hang em up and bleed them dry.
Scale & fillet leaving skin on.
Score diagonally across the bones as close as you can cut the scores.
Soak overnight in salt water with at least one change of water.
Get deep fryer hot. Its hard to get a frying pan hot enough.
Cut into manageable pieces & coat in your favorite fish coat. I use Andy's fish and shrimp.
Toss em in the deep fryer after the oil gets to roiling. They will float to the top when done. I give them a minute or so longer.
Drain well peel skin off and serve.
I usuall deep fry various vegetables at the same time. Potatoes, Zucini, Onion, carrots, Cucumber, Bell Pepper, etc.

 

I grew up south of Colorado Springs near a lake called Carp Lake in Widefield.

I lived in Colorado Springs when I was 14-16, near a lake called Quail Lake. There were many types of fish in there, when I first moved there I didn't know anyone so I went fishing every day that summer. I also caught my first carp in that lake was only a few pounds, but at the time the biggest fish I had ever caught.

Lots of good ideas in this thread, I certainly didn't expect this much info. Thanks again everyone who contributed, I will deffinitely be trying some of these things.

 

maybe your carp waters are cleaner where you're at, but where i'm from, we just don't eat carp.

 

That's cause there's only like 6 German people in Kaiserslautern.

 

I dated a girl from near Quail Lake for a while (before I was married, lol). I was stationed there for a while too. Anyway, some good recipes here. I am going to have to try some of these. I haven't ate much carp due to the bones, but I have never scored the fish before cooking. My grandma said she would pressure cook them when she was young and the family would also can the carp. She said it tasted fine, but it may have been because they didn't have much to eat back then anyway. Thanks for starting this very informative thread!

 

A couple of things FatKat (my brother) forgot to mention, the carp has 3 mud veins. One down the length of each filet. This is removed while cutting the red meat out. The other is under the fin on the top of his back. If you cut a large "V" the length of the carp, this will remove the third vein. Of course removing these veins are done after scaling and gutting the fish. What our father would do after cutting the head off is cut the carp in small enough pieces and running it through a meat grinder, bones and all. Then out mother would pressue cook and can them for the winter. Like Phil already mentioned, pressure cooking the bones are soft enough to eat. It's been 25 years ago but from what I can remember, you couldn't tell the difference between carp patties and salmon patties (at least to a couple of dirt poor hicks...lol). We ate a lot of varmits back then that most people would shy away from.

 

LOL, catbird...i used to eat varmints too....when i was a kid dad taught me and my brother how to clean squirrels and rabbits

man i loved fried rabbit and squirrel...haven't had any in years

cooked right, the carp is good stuff

 

Squirrels and rabbits were what the big city folks ate. I am talking about possums, groundhogs, and raccoons...lol