Carp in sweet and sour sauce with garlic. Catching luck by the tail: carp in sweet and sour sauce Carp in Chinese cuisine recipes

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 from 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 take care of 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 good luck has already smiled at you.

But why don't we talk to our friends about the trendy topic of fusion in cooking (fusion cuisine)? After all, there are national cuisines, where culinary techniques, ways of cutting products, serving to the table have been perfected for centuries. So why is everyone crazy now? For the sake of showing off show-off cut?
Sometimes and often, yes! Chefs who have no idea about the cuisine of the country whose dishes they cook, put the mark "fusion" on the menu and do what they want. But because fusion does not care! It's like a scrap, against which, as you know, there is no reception.

But sometimes…sometimes it is really necessary to apply the practice of mixing and combining different culinary traditions, taking the best from each and getting a really tasty dish as a result.
So you love “imperial carp”? Some yes, and some no. Why not?
Yes, because the Chinese fill the cooked carp with awesome sweet sauce. He's sweet and that's it! They have such a tradition, they do not recognize it differently. And we have traditional tastes, again, others. Well, we don’t eat sweet fish, and even rolled in starch, we don’t like it.
So what now? Eat fish with bones and forget about a really smart and useful invention of the Chinese - such as imperial carp? But hell - just change the gravy and go - enjoy carp without bones! Whether it’s fusion or not, it’s perpendicular to me personally, the main thing is that it’s delicious.

We will need:

1.Carp (well-fed) 1pc.
2. Bow 2 pcs.
3. Sour cream (real, not "bespectacled grandmother) 100g.
4. Vegetable oil left the whole bottle
5. Flour 10 gr.
6. Beer 300 ml.
7. Sugar 20 gr.
8. White pepper 24 peas.
9. Salt
10 Saffron (alcohol solution).

I'm the ingredients, why do I describe in such detail? For lovers of technical recipes especially. And then poor girls, without instructions in grams and pieces, sometimes cook, they cannot, and they write in the comments - but how much to fry in grams ?. And how much exactly what to put, advanced chefs themselves will understand and process, because any recipe is not a dogma, but a guide to action!

By the way - which of the men will start cooking, be sure to buy saffron

It is used in the form of an alcohol solution, which is very positive. A bottle of vodka is bought, the wife is told that for the recipe, 50 gr. used for soaking saffron, the rest is drunk during cooking.

So, having refreshed ourselves with vodka, we begin the process of cutting carp.

To begin with, a sharp dagger atrezay him a galava!

And, again, a sharp dagger, we make an incision along the back, taking it slightly away from the dorsal fin.

Yes, yes, on the back, we don’t touch the belly, because it is fatty and tasty, firstly, and secondly, the “Far Eastern” cutting of fish involves cutting from the back.

With smooth wide movements, we continue cutting the fish, leading the knife along the dorsal bones of the fin and skeleton. There is no need to be afraid of an unfamiliar method, I remember well how I myself for the first time butchered chum salmon from the back with fear, seeing only 2 times how others butchered and imagine - I did it! Experienced sea wolves did not even suspect that I was butchering for the first time in this way.

We lead the knife along the ribs, pressing it against the bones and trying to leave as little meat (fish?) as possible on them.

We cut the tail part near the caudal fin to the ridge

And discard half of the fillet

Repeat the operation with the other side of the carp

Spread the loin parts on the table and carefully separate the bony part from the pulp. Note friends - no guts and other debris - everything remains inside the carved skeleton.

Cut out the tail fin

The ridge itself is best cut off with scissors

Now let's do the actual cutting. Grind the pulp for subsequent frying of small bones. I hope everyone knows that small bones are fried when deep-fried fish? Well, who does not know - know! We cut the flesh of the carp at intervals of 10 mm (measure strictly with a caliper, the rulers are inaccurate) along the carcass

Then across, cutting through the flesh to the skin. Chinese cutting of 5 mm along and 30 mm with a strong slope across is not relevant to us. Well, although who wants the carp to be "shaggy" - you can cut it.

As a result, we get something like this. Small bones of the back, those that can be seen, are removed with tweezers.

Pepper, salt, leave for 30 minutes.

At this time…. But no! We do not drink the remaining vodka from saffron, but cut the onion into rings, fry in a saucepan until golden brown, and pass a spoonful of flour in the same place.

Stir, add sour cream

Pepper, sugar and saffron infusion

Stir and fill with beer. It took me 300 - 350 ml.

Let it boil for 5-8 minutes

And set the sauce aside.

At this time, pouring oil into a wok or stewpan, fry the carp head in it, not forgetting to remove the gills from it, of course. Fry for 5-6 minutes on each side, it is thick.

And there comes a very crucial moment. We lower the carp carcass into the oil, or rather what is left of it. Immerse completely in oil, using various devices in the form of wide spatulas and skimmers. Fry for 3 - 4 minutes. The fish should be completely immersed in oil (in the photo, the tail that did not fit at the time of shooting, I just bent it after finishing shooting and fried the whole fish.

No need to worry about the time - like 3-4 minutes is not enough, our fish is cut into pieces 1x1 cm. The temperature of the oil at this time, I measured, 174 gr. Celsius.

Serve hot sauce on the table, sprinkled with green onions and dill. I recommend overlaying crayfish, yet this is a Russian style, Chinese minimalism is unacceptable to us

photo in front

fingerprints

that is, this is ..., for the blind to the touch:

Z.Y. My wife, by the way, said that this is the best of my dishes, and she has the right to judge, what do you think?

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 skins always 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 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

Clean carp from scales, wash.
Make a deep incision along the back.
Use scissors to cut the spine at the head and tail, carefully remove the spinal bone from the fish.
Remove small bones with tweezers. Cut out the gills, remove the insides.
Rinse the fish again.
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.
Heat up 1 tbsp. l. vegetable oil. Add vegetables and half of the ginger, fry with vigorous stirring for 30 seconds.
Pour in half the soy sauce and immediately remove the pan from the heat.
Preheat the oven to 180 ° C. Lubricate the baking sheet with the remaining oil, lay a sheet of parchment or foil on it.
Stuff the carp through the cut in the back with fried vegetables. Carefully sew up the hole with large stitches.
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.
Pour sugar into a saucepan, add 3 tbsp. l. water, put on medium heat. Cook until sugar dissolves.
Add remaining soy sauce, ginger, star anise and vinegar.
Dilute the remaining starch in 2 tbsp. l. water, while stirring, pour into the mixture in a thin stream. Mix thoroughly, remove from heat.
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

Clean the fish, gut it, cut out the gills, do not cut off the head.
Flatten it like chicken tobacco, salt and leave for 10-15 minutes.
Breaded in starch and fried whole in a large amount of oil or deep-fried.
Put the fried fish on a dish.
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)
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.
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.
If you want to make the sauce spicier, you can add some chili peppers to it.
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

Wash carp, gut, remove gills.
Do not touch the head, tail and fins.
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.

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.
Cover the bowl with carp or steamer with a lid, and when the water boils, keep the carp on fire for about 20 minutes.

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.

Put the finished carp on a dish. If the carp released juice during cooking, sprinkle each piece of fish with this juice.
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

Spread the cleaned fish evenly with a mixture of seasonings and leave it in them for 20 minutes.
Wash all the vegetables and chop: peppers - into squares, onions - into half rings, green onions - into strips, garlic - chop.
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.
Using paper towels, blot the fish until it is dry and then dust or roll in flour.
Fry fish in oil until golden brown.
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.
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.
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.

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

Ingredients:

1.5 kg carp
100 gr soy sauce and water
lemon
cornstarch for sauce and for boning fillets
3 tbsp. tablespoons of tomato paste and dry white wine (rice wine is best)
ginger root
1 st. a spoonful of brown sugar

Carp in Chinese sweet and sour sauce is a delicious dish that is not ashamed to serve on the festive table.

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

Remove the entrails, head, tail from the fish, cut it into fillets. On each piece, make diagonal cuts, being careful not to cut through the skin. Squeeze out the juice from the lemon. Salt the fish, pour in soy sauce and lemon juice, leave to marinate for 20 minutes.

Roll the fish flesh with notches in starch, fry in boiling oil until crispy.

Chinese sweet and sour sauce for carp

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

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

With carp, you can cook many delicious dishes for a holiday, as well as for a family lunch or dinner. It can be simply fried, baked, boiled, or served with dressing, the best dish is carp in sweet and sour sauce in Chinese style.

To decorate any table, you can cook carp with a special sauce

Such a dish in Chinese cuisine is one of the best, it is served in almost every restaurant in the republic. There are many recipes in sweet and sour sauce, but this one is probably the best, the meat is tender with a spicy flavor.

What we need:

carp weighing one and a half kilograms (preferably mirrored);
120 grams of soy sauce;
one lime;
starch;
three tablespoons of tomato paste;
100 grams of water;
a little ginger root;
burnt sugar;
four tablespoons of wine (it is better to take white).

We rid the fish of scales, extract the giblets, throw out the head with the tail - we fillet. We make transverse and longitudinal cuts. Salt, pepper and sprinkle with sauce, leave to marinate for half an hour.

You can cook carp with sauce in various ways.

After the time has passed, dip the fish on all sides in starch and fry until a golden crust forms. To prepare the main sauce you will need: water, soy, wine, juice squeezed from a lemon, and grated ginger root. We put it on the fire, and wait until the mixture boils, then add the paste with sugar and let it stand for about 10 minutes. Separately, dilute the starch with water in a ratio of 1: 1, pour a couple of tablespoons of the finished sauce into the same place, pour it into the pan and cook until the mixture will thicken.

We serve the dish in this form: put pieces of carp in the shape of a fish on the bottom, pour abundantly with sweet and sour sauce and sprinkle with chopped herbs. You can sprinkle with nuts if you like.

The second cooking method

If you are already tired of the usual food and the question arises in your head how to diversify fish dishes, you can prepare the following recipe. For the amazing taste of carp, sweet and sour sauce is most suitable. Golden crust and pleasant aroma will appeal to even the most fastidious gourmet.

Ingredients:

carp, weighing 1 kilogram;
one lime;
ginger root;
favorite spices;
starch;
sunflower oil;
soy sauce;
a teaspoon of honey;
one orange;
Red pepper;
garlic;
sesame;
nuts;
greens to taste.

When cooking carp in sauce, you can change the ingredients of the sauce and get a new taste of the dish

We clean the fish from scales, remove the offal, cut off the head, also get rid of the tail and all fins. We separate the meat from the ridge and make cross cuts diagonally.

For the marinade, mix lemon juice and chopped ginger root, then add your favorite seasonings. Pour the prepared sauce over the fish and set aside in a cold place for half an hour.

At this time, we are preparing the main sweet and sour sauce for pickling carp: add honey, soy sauce, and garlic squeezed through a press to orange juice. At the end, sprinkle with red pepper and sprinkle with starch until the mixture acquires the desired consistency. Fry the pieces of meat, then dry them on dry napkins. Pour the oil into the pan and wait until it boils well.

Roll the fried fillet on all sides in starch and place in a hot frying pan, cook until the crust acquires a golden hue.

Now we make out: put the fish fillet on the bottom of the dish, pour plenty of sauce over it, then sprinkle with chopped herbs and chopped nuts. Porridge, pasta or boiled potatoes with vegetable salad can serve as a side dish.

The third cooking method

In Chinese cuisine, they love to experiment, so you can constantly try new dishes in restaurants. Their main strong point is recipes with sweet and sour sauce. For cooking, we buy exclusively fresh carp, and even better live - so there is no doubt about the quality.

The consistency and ingredients of the sauce can be chosen to your taste.

What you need to prepare this dish:

a mirror one and a half kilogram carp is best suited;
two liters of sunflower oil;
starch;
salt;
a teaspoon of sugar;
a tablespoon of vinegar;
soy sauce;
water;
tomato paste;
one carrot;
bulb.

As before cooking any dish, we clean the fish, remove the insides, cut off the head and gills (they can be useful for cooking fish soup). For convenience in eating, we make cuts with a sharp knife along the carcass and across - small squares are obtained. It will be convenient to string the finished pieces on a Chinese stick and dip into the sauce.

Pour oil into the pan, while it warms up, roll the carcass in starch. When the pan is hot, put the fish and fry on all sides for 5-7 minutes each. Prepare the sauce: mix sugar, salt and vinegar in equal proportions, add tomato paste and soy sauce diluted with water - mix.

Place fillets on paper towels to drain excess fat.

Separately, fry the chopped vegetables, pour the sauce and simmer for 3 minutes, after which, adding starch, wait until the mass thickens. We serve the dish as follows: put the fish on a flat plate, pour over with warm sauce and sprinkle with chopped herbs, as well as, if desired, finely chopped nuts.

You will find the recipe for carp with sweet and sour sauce in the video: