Carp fried in pieces with a crispy crust
The crust on fried fish comes from the temperature, not from the flour as such. The oil has to be hot before the first piece goes into it, and the heat needs to be a little above medium: on low heat the carp starts to stew in its own juice instead of frying, and the coating goes soggy instead of setting.
The other half of the job is the cornmeal. It is taken in equal measure with the wheat flour: the wheat holds the layer on the fish, the corn gives that grainy crunch you will not get from wheat alone. It is the simplest way to make home-fried fish taste unlike the canteen version.
Here you take three small carp rather than one large one: a small fish is cut into pieces in which crust and flesh come in the right proportion. If you have a two-kilo carp in your hands, it is better suited to frying with onions under a lid — there the task is the opposite one, to keep the moisture rather than the crust.
Pan-fried carp with onions does the opposite — a lid holds the moisture in, which this recipe avoids; the same approach on a large fish is mirror carp fried as steaks.
Caloric content: 245kcal
Break down the carp
Salt the pieces and pour lemon over them
Mix the two flours
Heat the oil
Fry over heat a little above medium
Serve
Notes
- Lemon instead of marinating. The fish does not need half an hour in salt here: the juice of half a lemon works faster and at the same time takes away the silty aftertaste of pond carp. It must not be left on for long — the acid will start to "cook" the surface and the crust will come out limp.
- Exactly equal parts of the two flours. More cornmeal and the layer crumbles off the piece into the pan; more wheat flour and you get an ordinary soft coating.
- Do not cover with a lid at all. Steam under the lid softens the crust within a minute, and there is no bringing it back.
- The onion goes in at the end. If you pile it in straight away, it will burn before the fish browns: the fish here is fried over a higher heat than the onion can take.
- Do not throw the head and the tail away. They make a rich broth — carp head fish soup needs exactly those, not the fillet.
Recipe and step-by-step photos — kolizhanka.net.ua.
