Carp Baked in Light Beer with Honey

Kateryna Bondar
Carp Baked in Light Beer with HoneyCarp Baked in Light Beer with Honey
Cuisine
Course
Serves 4 people
Prep time
30m
Cook Time
25m

Carp in beer belongs to the Polish and wider Central European table, often the Christmas Eve one, where hop bitterness and a spoonful of honey work together against the muddy note freshwater fish can carry. Over 20-25 minutes in the oven the beer reduces by roughly half, its malt caramelizes, and what’s left in the pan is a dark sauce you baste the fish with as it bakes.

The two cups of beer go in at the side of the pan, never over the fish’s back: the skin has to stay dry if it’s going to brown. Thin the honey with a spoonful of warm water first — neat honey runs to the bottom and scorches long before a 1.3 kg (about 3 lb) fish is done.

About the beer: you want a plain pale lager with no assertive bitterness. Dark or heavily hopped styles concentrate as they reduce into something sharp and almost medicinal, and that is the usual reason this dish disappoints.

The matchsticks of onion, carrot, and parsley root (the pale, parsnip-like root sold as Hamburg parsley; parsnip or a chunk of celeriac substitutes without complaint) do double duty: part is stuffed into the cavity to scent the fish from within, the rest braises in the beer and becomes the side dish. If whole carp is hard to find, trout takes the same treatment. Score a large fish diagonally a few times for even cooking; thick steaks bring the time down to 15-18 minutes. Boiled potatoes or braised sauerkraut soak up the sauce.

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Ingredients

  • 1 Piece
    carp (whole fish, about 1.3 kg)
  • 4 Tablespoons
    vegetable oil
  • 2 Pieces
    onions
  • 2 Pieces
    carrots
  • 2 Pieces
    parsley roots
  • 1 Teaspoon
    honey
  • 2 Cups
    light beer
  • ground black pepper, to taste
  • ground allspice, to taste
  • salt, to taste
  • parsley and dill, 3 sprigs each

Instructions

  1. Scale the carp, gut it, remove the gills, rinse well, and pat dry with paper towels.

  2. Cut the onion, carrot, and parsley root into thin matchsticks and saute them in 2 tablespoons of heated oil, seasoning lightly with salt.

  3. Grease the roasting pan with the remaining oil, add the carp, and stuff it with part of the sauteed vegetables. Season the fish inside and out with salt and pepper.

  4. Drizzle the fish with the honey thinned with 1 tablespoon of warm water.

  5. Carefully pour the beer into the pan from the side, keeping it off the carp's back, and scatter the rest of the sauteed vegetables around it.

  6. Bake at 180C (350F) for 20 to 25 minutes, occasionally basting the fish with the sauce from the bottom of the pan.

  7. Before serving, garnish with sprigs of parsley and dill.

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