Wild Carp with Lemon and Sour Cream, Baked in the Oven

Wild carp is the wild ancestor of carp, and the difference isn't just in the name. It's more active, its meat is denser, it has less fat, and the flavor is more pronounced. In the oven that means one thing: wild carp dries out faster than pond-raised carp, and it needs something to cover it.

Sour cream is spread along the back exactly for that. It isn't a sauce here — at 180 °C it sets into a thin coating, under which the fish finishes cooking in its own juices. What drips down to the bottom of the dish later becomes the sauce for the portion.

Lemon goes in as wedges on top of the onion, not into the belly cavity. Its place there is taken by thyme: dried thyme holds up to half an hour in the heat better than fresh, which turns black and bitter by the end of baking.

Wild carp has plenty of bones, and there's more than one fix: wild carp fillet baked in white wine removes them before the oven, while juicy wild carp in foil with tomatoes leaves the fish whole.

Caloric content: 135kcal

Notes

• The sour cream has to be thick. Low-fat sour cream splits into water and flakes at 180 °C, drips off the fish, and leaves the back bare.
• A carcass over a kilogram and a half needs more time. Add ten minutes for every additional five hundred grams. Thirty-five minutes is for fish up to a kilogram and a half.
• Remove the lemon seeds. After half an hour in the oven they turn bitter, and there's nothing left in the finished dish to mask it.
• Use dried thyme. Fresh thyme in the belly cavity turns black within half an hour. Dried holds its aroma until the end of baking.
• The small bones don't go anywhere. Wild carp, like all carp-family fish, has them. If that's a problem, make frequent slashes down to the backbone before baking.

Questions and Answers

How long to bake wild carp in the oven?

Thirty-five minutes at 180 °C for a carcass up to a kilogram and a half. Larger fish — add ten minutes for every additional half kilogram.

What's the difference between wild carp and carp?

Wild carp is the wild form, carp is its domesticated version. Wild carp has denser meat and less fat, so it dries out faster in the oven and needs a coating.

Can it be baked without sour cream?

Yes, but then the fish needs to be covered with foil or a roasting bag. Wild carp baked uncovered and without a coating turns dry within half an hour.

What to do about the small bones?

Cut slashes down to the backbone every two centimeters before baking. Bones don't soften in the oven — the slashes cut them into short pieces, and that is why they stop getting in the way.

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