Carp for the Chinese New Year's table. Chinese carp in sweet and sour sauce, recipe Chinese carp recipe

Carp is the best fish for the New Year's table. This is exactly what many culinary experts in Europe and Asia think. And probably not in vain. Carp is a source of protein, the main building material of the human body.

But carp contains a lot of bones. Swallowed fish bones can injure the esophagus and intestines. However, if the carp is boiled for a long time, these bones soften and become the same as in canned food. They can be safely eaten, and the dish, due to the presence of edible bones, becomes rich in calcium, a trace element that is directly involved in the formation of human bone tissue.

Of course, everywhere there are recipes for preparing New Year's carp and certain traditions associated with it. We will not touch upon the traditions of Europe. Just look at the pretty picture. We are interested in Asia.

They cook for a very long time (from 2.5 to 7 hours) the famous jewish stuffed fish - gefilte fish. This is a dish of the Rosh Hashanah holiday - the Jewish New Year, which is celebrated for two days, on the 1st and 2nd of the Jewish month of Tishrei. In 2013, it came on September 5, and in 2014, Rosh Hashanah falls on September 25.

The fish on the festive table here symbolizes fertility and prosperity, for it was the fish (and birds) that the Almighty blessed on the fifth day of creation, saying to them: "Be fruitful and multiply."

The name of the holiday is translated from Hebrew as "the head of the year", and therefore the traditional New Year's wish sounds like this: "Let us be in the head, not in the tail." Therefore, the fish head is considered the most "honorable" piece, which is presented either to the head of the house or to the most respected guest. Sometimes even the head of the fish is served on a separate dish.

The fish is served on the table, overlaying it with circles of carrots, which should resemble gold coins in shape and color, symbolizing wealth.

As a rule, gefilte fish is exactly a carp, preferably a mirror one. It's softer and tastier. Sometimes - a combination of carp and pike.

To prepare this dish, the carp is needed exactly alive. Once upon a time on my street, which was then called not Pokrovka, but Chernyshevsky Street, in house number 19 there was a large fish store where you could very often buy live carp. And if you're lucky, then a mirror.

Carp in my family loved and cooked on holidays. I dragged home a bag with carps jumping in it and worried in advance that they would have to be killed. It was hard to kill, and we just left a bag of carps on the floor and waited for them to “sleep”. If the carps had to be cooked after some time, the bath was filled with water and released to where they swam for a couple of days until the right moment.

My aunt, who grew up in a small Jewish town in Ukraine, was a big specialist in cooking carp.

If she didn’t stuff it, but boiled it, she cooked it like this. The carp was cleaned of scales, gutted (the gills were necessarily removed, and the caviar or milk was preserved, if they were good, and cooked together with the carp), cut into pieces. A fairly large amount of beets, carrots and onions were cut into circles. Garlic cloves, bay leaf and black peppercorns, as well as onion peel were added from spices.

A layer of vegetables and spices was put into a deep saucepan, then pieces of carp, then another layer of vegetables and spices, onion peel was poured on top. All this was filled with water so that it covered the husk, and put on a slow fire, on which the carp languished for 3-4 hours. If necessary, the water was gradually added. If there were a lot of fish, carp and vegetables were layered, but vegetables and onion peels necessarily made up the top layer.

Carp prepared in this way has a sweetish taste.

The finished carp was laid out on a long dish, covered with circles of beets and carrots and poured over with the broth in which it was cooked. Sauce was prepared from the remnants of the broth and vegetables - they were simply ground, crushed or ground into a pulp.

The sauce was either served separately or poured over the carp. Horseradish relied on carp. Once upon a time, the Jewish New Year's carp was called "bitter fish."

The technology of cooking stuffed carp was the same. Preserving the skin, the aunt cut out fillets from the carp and cooked minced meat from it, adding a little egg, onion, garlic, soaked white bread, salt and black pepper to taste. The fish was stuffed with this stuffing - either the whole, or each piece separately. As a rule, for the preparation of minced meat, the aunt used a separate fish, keeping its head, and stuffed others with it. If the minced meat remained, koloboks were formed from it and placed in the same pan.

Other masters of cooking this fish advise better to cook and serve stuffed fish on the table as a whole in the form of a jellied dish. Let her first stand on the table, show off. It is cut into pieces just before being laid out on plates. And when, according to Jewish tradition, the head of the family is first served among the Jews, he is not occupied with conversations while he eats, breaking it into pieces and sucking on each bone. As a rule, starting this meal, he says: “Let us be in the head, and not in the tail.”

Let us!

The network describes many options for cooking stuffed carp in Jewish style. If you are interested, see, for example, or.

In Japan carp was considered a special fish - the "king" among freshwater fish.

The medieval writer Kenko-hoshi (Urabe Kaneyoshi) (1283-1350) said:

“The carp is very noble, because of all the fish, only one carp can be butchered in the highest presence”

And until now, carp is the decoration of the festive and exquisite table in Japan.

We will talk about the symbolism and traditions of carp in Japan in a separate post, which will be published a little later, but here we will talk a little about cooking.

In the old days, Japanese peasants raised carp in artificial ponds specifically for food, since in remote areas, such as in the province of Niigata, there were serious difficulties with food, and often carp was the only food. Gradually, Japanese carps became pond fish.

On New Year's Eve in Japan, carp is eaten at a festive dinner with various sauces fried and stewed.

There is also such an “attraction” in Japan - dishes called ikizukuri, or “eaten alive”. These are dishes from various animals prepared in the form of sashimi, that is, not only with minimal heat treatment, but also in such a way that the animal being eaten remains alive when served.

Ikizokuri made from carp breathing on the table with its mouth open is very popular in Japan. This is how they eat it - raw and still alive.

I suggest you watch a two-minute English-language video "Live Sashimi Preparation and Eating in Japan" on the topic of ikizokuri:

But if you are interested in the details of how this dish is prepared from carp, and you are ready to spend 9 minutes satisfying your curiosity, your way here:

What about the theme carp in the culinary traditions of China?

New Year's Chinese table is distinguished by a huge variety of dishes. The only product that is forbidden to be served on the table on New Year's Eve is fresh white tofu, because white in China is the color of misfortune and death, the color of mourning.
Whole chicken, noodles and fish are always present on the New Year's table.

A whole fish, with a head, tail and fins, symbolizes unity, closeness and harmony in the family.

A whole chicken with a head and paws is a symbol of completeness.

Whole noodles symbolize long life, so you can’t cut it either.

A plentiful New Year's table is a symbol of abundance and prosperity in the house and a wish for abundance and prosperity in the coming year.

In China, a dish of fresh carp is called "Carp from the Yellow River". This is a carp, pre-lubricated with a beaten egg, deep-fried. This dish is served in sweet and sour red sauce.

Chinese New Year carp in sweet and sour red sauce

Ingredients for 2 servings

• 1 carp,
• 1 sweet yellow pepper
• 1 sweet red pepper
• 1 red onion
• 1 eggplant
• a piece of fresh ginger 2 cm long,
• 2 star anise
• 3 art. l. soy sauce,
• 2 tbsp. l. Sahara,
• 2 tsp starch,
• 1 st. l. white wine vinegar,
• 2 tbsp. l. vegetable oil,
• Salt and pepper to taste

Cooking

1. Clean carp from scales, wash.
2. Make a deep incision along the back.
3. Use scissors to cut the spine at the head and tail, carefully remove the spinal bone from the fish.
4. Remove small bones with tweezers. Cut out the gills, remove the insides.
5. Rinse the fish again.
6. Wash and process vegetables: cut sweet pepper in half, remove seeds and stalks, cut into thick strips; cut the eggplant into cubes; peel the onion, thinly cut into half rings; Peel and mince the ginger.
7. Heat up 1 tbsp. l. vegetable oil. Add vegetables and half of the ginger, fry with vigorous stirring for 30 seconds.
8. Pour in half the soy sauce and immediately remove the pan from the heat.
9. Preheat the oven to 180 ° C. Lubricate the baking sheet with the remaining oil, lay a sheet of parchment or foil on it.
10. Stuff the carp through the cut in the back with fried vegetables. Carefully sew up the hole with large stitches.
11. Dilute 1 tsp. starch in 2 tbsp. l. water, grease the fish with this mixture on all sides. Put the carp on a baking sheet, put in the oven and bake for 25 minutes. Carefully remove the thread from the finished fish.
12. Pour sugar into a saucepan, add 3 tbsp. l. water, put on medium heat. Cook until sugar dissolves.
13. Add remaining soy sauce, ginger, star anise and vinegar.
14. Dilute the remaining starch in 2 tbsp. l. water, while stirring, pour into the mixture in a thin stream. Mix thoroughly, remove from heat.
15. Pour the finished carp with the resulting sauce.

Here's another one chinese family recipe for new year carp, traveling on the internet.

Ingredients

• Mirror carp - about 1 kg
• Starch for breading
• Vegetable oil for frying

For sauce:

• Vegetable oil - 2 tbsp.
• Small carrots - 1 pc.
• Small fresh cucumber -1 pc.
• Sweet red pepper - ½ large or 1 small
• Fresh ginger root - about 30g
• Garlic-1 clove
• Tomato paste-100 g
• Green onions (only the green part) - a few feathers
• Sugar - 0.5 tsp.
• Starch - 1 tsp
• Water - 200 ml

Cooking

1. Clean the fish, gut it, cut out the gills, do not cut off the head.
2. Flatten it like chicken tobacco, salt and leave for 10-15 minutes.
3. Breaded in starch and fried whole in a large amount of oil or deep-fried.
4. Put the fried fish on a dish.
5. Peel the vegetables necessary for the sauce, except for the cucumber, remove the core and seeds from the sweet pepper, cut into small cubes. Cucumber cut into cubes without peeling. (I wouldn't even peel the eggplant)
6. Roast the carrots first. After 2 minutes, add the cucumber, after the cucumber - pepper. Fry for a couple of minutes. Then add chopped garlic and ginger root.
7. Pour water into the resulting mixture, add tomato paste, salt, sugar and starch. Mix everything well so that there are no lumps. Lastly, add chopped green onions.
8. If you want to make the sauce spicier, you can add some chili peppers to it.
9. Pour hot sauce over fish and serve.

Steam carp in Chinese

To prepare this dish, ideally, you need a live carp. Although you can cook carp or silver carp. I cooked fish fillets the same way.

We cut the carp into pieces, but it could also be prepared for the Chinese New Year's table, if your kitchen utensils allow you not to cut it, but to steam it whole.

I'll tell you how they taught me how to cook it.

Ingredients

• Just "asleep" live carp - about 1 kg
• Garlic porridge from 2 heads of garlic
• Fresh grated or ground ginger - 1 tsp
• Light soy sauce - ½ cup
• Onion, grated or finely chopped - 1 pc.
• Water - 1/2 cup
• Starch - 1 tsp topless
• Vegetable oil - 2 tsp.
• Red medium hot ground pepper - to taste
• Salt - to taste

Cooking

1. Wash carp, gut, remove gills.
2. Do not touch the head, tail and fins.
3. Put the pieces of fish in a single layer in a large bowl and place it on a saucepan of water so that the bottom of the bowl sinks into the saucepan, and there is a gap of several cm between the bottom of the bowl and the water level. If you have a double boiler, place it on the steamer tray.

1. Sprinkle the fish with a small amount of finely chopped or grated garlic, onion, ginger and salt, mixing them to taste, or put them in a pile on each piece.
2. Cover the bowl with carp or steamer with a lid, and when the water boils, keep the carp on fire for about 20 minutes.

1. Separately cook sauce:
   • a. Heat vegetable oil in a frying pan and throw in a gruel of garlic, onion, ginger, salt.
   • b. Lightly brown everything by sautéing. You can also add red pepper.
   • c. Mix soy sauce with water, add a little starch there and bring this mixture to the consistency of a thick jelly over a fire.
   • d. Then mix in what you cooked in the pan.

1. Put the finished carp on a dish. If the carp released juice during cooking, sprinkle each piece of fish with this juice.
2. Serve with soy-garlic sauce, which is poured over the finished fish during meals.

Carp is the most tender!

A popular fish dish worthy of the New Year's table is also “dantsufushouyu”, a dish that China Radio International (CRI Russian) offered on the eve of the Chunjie holiday a couple of years ago, publishing a step-by-step recipe for its preparation. It is one of the traditional dishes of Shandong cuisine. The cleaned fish is fried until golden yellow, then poured with a pre-prepared sweet and sour sauce and stewed in it for several minutes.

“For our culinary recipe, we chose tilapia, which in Chinese has a very good name “fushouyu” - translated into Russian - “fish of happiness and longevity,” writes CRI Russian.

Tanzufushouyu (fish in sweet and sour sauce)

Ingredients (for three people)

• Tilapia - 420 g.
• ½ onion
• ½ green, red and yellow peppers
• 2 bunches of green onions
• chopped garlic
• flour - 1 tsp
• vegetable oil
• starch

For seasoning:

• rice vodka - 1 tsp
• sugar 1/3 tsp
• salt - 1/2 tsp
• egg white

For sweet and sour sauce:

• tomato sauce - 8 tsp
• rice vinegar - 6 tsp
• sugar - 2 tsp
• water - 1/4 cup.

Cooking

1. Spread the cleaned fish evenly with a mixture of seasonings and leave it in them for 20 minutes.
2. Wash all the vegetables and chop: peppers - into squares, onions - into half rings, green onions - into strips, garlic - chop.
3. Pour 8 tablespoons of tomato sauce, 6 tablespoons of rice vinegar, 2 tablespoons of sugar and 1/4 cup of pure water into a cup. Mix all the ingredients to prepare the sauce.
4. Using paper towels, blot the fish until it is dry and then dust or roll in flour.
5. Fry fish in oil until golden brown.
6. Fry green onions, chopped garlic, onions over high heat, add sweet and sour sauce and put fish in it. Reduce heat and simmer over low heat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
7. After 5 minutes, remove the fish and put it on a large plate or dish. Put the peppers into the pan. Increase the heat and fry the pepper and all the ingredients over high heat, at the end add a little starch to the sauce.
8. Put the vegetables with the sauce on the fish. The dish is almost ready, although you can stew the fish for a few more minutes along with the sauce, returning it to the pan.

Finally, I want to introduce you to the article “Carp: how to cut it and what to cook with it”, which describes the recipe for cooking carp meatballs in Chinese and gives very useful recommendations on how to get rid of bone problems when cooking whole carp.

Here's what it says:

The most logical way to get rid of the need to select the bones is to grind the fish fillets into minced meat. In China, for example, very popular small meatballs made from carp. Usually, in addition to fish, they necessarily contain other ingredients. It can be ginger and green onions, mushrooms, bamboo shoots and even some types of noodles. Often meat is added to minced fish. Oddly enough, but carp really goes well with pork ...

Fillet the carp, removing the backbone and costal bones. Mince the fish with an equal amount of lean pork until smooth. Traditionally, two heavy knives are used for this, but an ordinary meat grinder is also quite suitable. Add the white of one egg, some rice wine and starch. Salt, pepper and knead well. Stir in finely chopped leeks (only the white part) into the minced meat and let stand for half an hour in the refrigerator. Then, with your hands dipped in cold water, roll the minced meat into balls with a diameter of about 2 cm.

Bring chicken broth to a boil. Gently lower the meatballs into it, reduce the heat and, after boiling for about five minutes, add the top (green) part of the leek, chopped into strips. You can also add some fresh mushrooms, such as oyster mushrooms. Then cook for no more than 5 minutes and serve, flavored with a small amount of soy sauce, sprinkled with finely chopped chili peppers and cilantro.

There is a way get rid of problems with bones and when cooking whole carp. Before you send the fish to the pan, into the double boiler or into the oven, deep cross cuts should be made along the entire length from the back side. At the same time, the more often the incisions go, the less inconvenience small bones will cause while eating. The fact is that with such cutting, the bones are not only crushed, but also significantly softened under direct thermal influence. In addition, this method has another definite plus - spices and seasonings penetrate deeper into the meat, and it takes less time to cook the fish.

All the best to you in the New Year!

Eat carp for health and be careful with its bones.

Only one recipe name seems difficult to prepare. But that's not the case at all. prepared according to a Chinese recipe in sauce, cooked in one go. And carp meat is incredibly tasty.

And to prove this, I propose to cook carp with us according to the 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 cooking aspic from carp, wash the fish from mucus under running water. Remove the gills from the carp's head. Cut off the fins and tail. Cut open the belly to clean the fish carcass of giblets. Now, remove the scales. Rinse the cleaned carp carcass in running water, which is good to clean it from the remaining particles of giblets, as well as blood.

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

Add some freshly squeezed lemon juice.

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

Carp, grated with sweet and sour sauce, wrap tightly with foil, put on a baking sheet and send to the oven. We will bake for 40 minutes at 180 degrees. To fully cook the carp, bake it for at least 20 minutes in foil, 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, becomes golden in color, you can take it out of the oven and put it on a serving dish. And also, decorate it with herbs and mayonnaise.

Bon appetit!

Chinese cooks call carp "water fox" for cunning and the ability to cut the fishing line with a fin. European chefs - "water calf" for laziness and fleshiness. Both of them agree on one thing: it tastes good, and most importantly, it is easy to cook.

Although carp is considered a sacred fish by the Chinese, they started cooking it a thousand years ago. What they pretty much succeeded in and gave the world an amazing combination of tender boneless white meat with sweet and sour sauce and young bamboo sprouts. To cook carp according to a Chinese recipe, you need to know a few subtleties.
The first is the choice of the carp itself. In Chinese restaurants, this dish is prepared only from mirror carps: their food system is built in such a way that the meat becomes fatter than that of ordinary carp, and besides, it tastes sweet. It can be easily distinguished by bare, almost without scales, sides.
The second is small bones. Carp is good for its meat, in which, closer to the tail, a large number of small bones are concentrated. Chinese cooks solve the problem with extremely high temperatures, at which the bones soften. In order to use this technique, you need to start by making transverse mesh notches from the head to the tail of the fish in half a centimeter increments when cutting. When frying, hot oil, falling into these cuts, will boil the bones.
In addition, there is another rule. As you know, to preserve the juice, any meat or fish must be fried in a very hot frying pan: this will seal the outer surface of the piece, while maintaining its inner softness and juiciness. Carp should be fried exactly like this - on a hot surface. Butter can not be used - only olive or corn.
And let's also mention a few features of cutting a carp: start cutting with a separation of the head, then remove all the films lining the abdominal cavity of the carp from the inside. Follow this sequence and clean everything thoroughly - otherwise, the fish may acquire a bitter taste and an unpleasant odor.

Carp with Chinese sweet and sour sauce

• Mirror carp - 1.5 kg
• Soy sauce - 100 g
• Juice of 1 lemon
• Corn starch (sufficient amount for
• fillet deboning - 300 g.)
• Tomato paste - 3 tbsp
• Water - 100 g
• Fresh ginger - 3 cm
• Bamboo shoots (canned or fresh) - 100 g
• Brown sugar - 1 tbsp
• Dry white wine - 3 tbsp.
• Greenery
• Pine nuts

We clean fresh carp from scales and entrails, remove all films, rinse thoroughly in running water. Remove the backbone and large bones, cut into wide strips of the fillet with skin. On each of the strips, cut the meat with a “mesh” in increments of 0.5 cm, salt, pour over lemon juice and soy sauce: the meat should be marinated, so leave it for half an hour.
After the fillet has matured, roll it in cornstarch, simultaneously heating the pan with corn oil. We spread the fillet, frying it until a crispy golden crust.
Now let's leave the carp alone and deal with the sauce. Mix soy sauce, dry wine, lemon juice and chopped ginger, add water, tasting. The sauce should be as rich as possible. Boil the mixture, add tomato paste, sugar and boil for 10 minutes. If the sauce is too thin, adjust with a couple of tablespoons of cornstarch. We evaporate excess moisture and cook until the sauce becomes thicker. Cut the young bamboo shoots into cubes, add to the sauce, mix, cook for 2-3 minutes.
Carp is served with sauce and sprinkled with pine nuts and herbs. According to Chinese beliefs, it brings good luck. There is no reliable information about this, but one thing is for sure - if the carp is on your table, then luck has already smiled at you.

Do not be surprised if you received a live carp as a gift for Chinese New Year. In China, there is no better way to wish for prosperity.

The Chinese pay special attention to the choice of a gift. Pears cannot be given to newlyweds, because the name of the fruit is consonant with the word "part". Live fish, on the contrary, will always be accepted with gratitude, because the word "fish" (yu) is close in sound to the word "abundance", and river carp (liyu) - to the expression "good profit".

Carp for the Chinese 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 waterfall. They went to heaven and turned into dragons. However, there is a belief that not all carps 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 an original recipe for squirrel carp was invented in the city of Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. Allegedly, Emperor Qianlong (1711-1799) from the Qing Dynasty went to the temple while traveling and saw a fresh carp on the altar. The ruler wanted to taste the fish destined for the gods, and the cook, in order to avoid their wrath, decided to cook carp in 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 the dish, the tail of the fish is given the same position.

There are many ways to cook 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 birthplace of Confucius. Carps from the Yellow River were marinated in rice wine to remove the bad smell. The fillet was carefully cut crosswise so that it could be well soaked in marinade. Then the fish was rolled in rice starch and fried in boiling oil in a wok. As a result, each piece became crispy and acquired a golden color.

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

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

Squirrel carp in sweet and sour sauce

RECIPE

How many servings: 2
Cooking time: 15 minutes

1. Clean the carp from scales, remove the insides, cut along the abdomen. Separate the head and, removing the gills, put it on the tray. Trim the tail. Make a longitudinal incision from the side of the ridge to the tail, leaving a small piece uncut so that the fillet parts remain connected. Take out the ridge and large bones. Trim the edges of the fillets. Make at an angle many parallel cuts 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. Salt and pepper the carp fillet and head, 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 out, the skin inside.

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

4. Mix all the ingredients for the sauce in a saucepan, put on a slow fire. Bring the sauce to a boil and turn off immediately. Fry green peas and diced pineapple in a pan for a couple of minutes, add to the sauce. Put the carp on a dish and pour over the sauce. Decorate with cilantro.