Wild carp baked in foil with potatoes and tomatoes

Name: Wild carp baked in foil with potatoes and tomatoes
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 1 h
Total time: 80 min
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients: Wild carp — 1 large fish Potatoes — 3 pcs. Onion — 2 pcs. Tomatoes — 2 pcs. Bay leaf — to taste Black peppercorns — to taste Oil — for greasing Herbs — to serve Salt — to taste Ground black pepper — to taste

Published: 04.09.2026

Updated: 04.09.2026

🤤 Здорові рецепти щодня

Cooking time 80 minutes Portions 6 servings

Wild carp is the wild ancestor of the farmed carp, and it is a denser and leaner fish than its pond relative. Foil suits it best of all: a closed parcel holds the steam and the meat cooks in its own juice instead of drying out on an open tray.

Here the whole dinner goes into one parcel: the fillet at the bottom, onion, potatoes and tomatoes on top. The vegetables are laid on the fish rather than beside it — the juice running out of the tomatoes and the onion goes down through the fish, not off to the side. The potatoes then cook in fish juice rather than in water, and that is a different taste altogether.

For the last quarter of an hour the foil comes off. Without that step the dish will be correct but pale: under foil there is no dry heat and therefore no browning. The same trick works with wild carp under mustard sauce, except that there it is the sauce that plays the part of the foil.

The same wild carp is portioned into steaks in the oven in foil boats, and goes under a mustard sauce in baked wild carp steaks in mustard sauce.

Caloric content: 150kcal

Ingredients

Wild carp — 1 large fish
Potatoes — 3 pcs.
Onion — 2 pcs.
Tomatoes — 2 pcs.
Bay leaf — to taste
Black peppercorns — to taste
Oil — for greasing
Herbs — to serve
Salt — to taste
Ground black pepper — to taste

Clean the wild carp

Scale the fish, take out the gills and the innards and rinse it well. Cut off the head and the tail.

Break it down into fillets

Break the fish down into fillets, taking out the backbone and the bones. Put the trimmings aside — they will make a rich broth.

Prepare the tray

Line a baking tray with foil and grease it with oil.

Lay out the fillet

Lay the wild carp fillet skin down, in an even layer.

Salt it and add the onion

Salt and pepper the fish, rubbing the seasoning into the meat. Spread onion cut into thick rings over it and add the bay leaf and the peppercorns.

Add the potatoes and the tomatoes

Peel the potatoes and cut them into rounds, fill the free space with them and salt them lightly. Cut the tomatoes into rounds, lay them over the layer of onion and grind pepper over the top.

Bake it under foil

Wrap the whole thing in foil and put it into an oven heated to 200 °C for 45 minutes.

Take the top foil off

Take the top sheet of foil off and put the dish back in the oven for another 10–15 minutes — this time for the browning.

Let the moisture cook off

In those minutes the excess moisture evaporates and the vegetables stop swimming in juice.

Serve

Divide the dish into portions right there on the tray and garnish with herbs.

Notes

The trimmings — head, tail and backbone — are not thrown away. They make a rich broth, and wild carp gives a stronger one than farmed carp: a wild fish has more connective tissue.
Lay the fillet skin down. The skin works as a lining here: without it the bottom layer of the meat sticks to the foil and stays on it.
Cut the potatoes into rounds, not batons. Rounds lie in an even layer and keep pace with the fish; batons will stay raw inside.
The thicker the layers, the longer the baking. Forty-five minutes is for the usual set of ingredients; if the fish is a big one and there are plenty of vegetables the time goes up, and it is the potatoes you should check rather than the fish — they take longer.
Put the tomatoes on last, on top. Underneath the potatoes they will let their juice run right to the bottom and the lowest layer will be swimming in it.
Only the top sheet of foil comes off. The bottom one stays — you use it to move the dish onto a plate without breaking it up.

Recipe and step-by-step photos — kolizhanka.net.ua.