Skip to main content
Main

Stuffed Carp

A whole carp stuffed with carp flesh, roes, and forced meat, glazed with eggs and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Egg and roe work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 243 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Stuffed Carp

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the forcemeat

  1. Remove the skin and flesh from the carp, preserving the head, tail, and 3 inches of the bone.

  2. Combine the flesh of the carp with the flesh of the two smaller carp to make forced meat.

Assemble the carp

  1. Spread the forced meat in a dish nearly 1 inch thick and place the head and tail back in their positions.

  2. Prepare a salpicon or ragout with the carp roes and fill the belly of the carp with it.

  3. Cover the salpicon or ragout with more forced meat, ensuring the head and tail are well incorporated.

Glaze, bake and serve

  1. Glaze the entire carp with 2 beaten eggs and use a spoon to create scales.

  2. Wrap the head and tail in buttered paper and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1 hour until golden.

  3. Remove the paper, wipe the dish, and serve with a good espagnole sauce or ragout of the roes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Egg + roetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together243 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  2. Butter + roetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together442 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Carp
Forms the main body of the dish, providing the flesh that becomes the forcemeat.
Eggs
Beaten eggs glaze the surface, giving a golden colour as the carp bakes.
Butter
Buttered paper wrapping keeps the head and tail moist and protected during baking.
Carp roes
Make the rich salpicon or ragout that fills the belly, adding texture and flavour.

The step that matters

Covering the head and tail with forcemeat. If the head and tail are not well incorporated into the forcemeat, they can dry out or separate during baking, so they must be fully covered and secured.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes