Traditional Food Recipe: Stuffed Carp

Well, if you haven’t seen my tweets all weekend long from oooooh’ing and ahhhhhh’ing over my much-needed weekend of R&R, here’s a post derived from my weekend with nature. I feel refreshed and my mind cleared, just as I suspected I would today! In fact, I’m writing this a whole day early!

The surprising view from my tent when I woke up Saturday morning. We set up in the dark and in the rain. It was foggy and visibility was poor, so this was a lovely surprise to have such a great view!

It just so happened to work out that I could arrange to be mostly off-call from work, and I had some kid-free "me time" that I could get away with a friend who invited me sort of impromptu.  It was exactly what I was needing, but I was not sure how to facilitate it for myself. So, I grabbed the chance to be out in nature and do some things I was interested in doing with someone who knew how.

Fast forward to late Saturday night. It had been a very nice day, but severe weather the night before. Almost every boat we pulled up to on the lake said the same thing, fishing wasn’t real great, the fish were all full. So, we tried again later in the evening, only to barely beat another severe storm to shore. 

It cleared pretty quickly after dark and after sitting by the camp fire for a few hours, the bells on the shore started going off. Here’s my very first fish that I officially reeled in myself! 

A nice sized Walleye.

Later we caught a carp, and it was about to be thrown back, but I was up to the challenge to find some way to prepare it. So, we kept it…sorry, little carp. Well, he wasn’t little since I got about 4 lbs of meat out of it. I had read I should salt and pepper the crap out of the carp (can't go wrong with that logic!), so I did after rinsing it, removing the fins and patting it dry. Then I scored it every square inch. I read that it would be easier when eating to remove the pin bones.

I’d never made anything list this before and I was excited to not only use fish we’d caught, but also my stash of morels that I myself had also hunted! I felt the same effect of when I let the kids help me cook, they eat so much better when they have that time investment in it. 

I was able to find a great recipe for Stuffed Carp. It was delicious! 

Sliced and served immediately after baking, with salt and pepper.

I would definitely be interested to know if any seasoned cooks have any tips for removal of the pin bones in advance. I had considered baking it whole next time and removing it all before using in a recipe for Carp Cakes (similar to crab cakes).

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