Crucian Carp Baked in Sour Cream: Easy Oven Recipe

Name: Crucian Carp Baked in Sour Cream: Easy Oven Recipe
Prep time: 1 h
Cook time: 1 h
Total time: 2 h
Yield: 2
Cuisine: European
Ingredients: Crucian carp (120-150 g each) 6; Full-fat homemade sour cream 1.5 cups; Butter 50 g; Salt, black pepper, flour to taste

I love crucian carp cooked with homemade sour cream. To be honest, store-bought sour cream, especially the “modern” kind, only ruins the dish. By the way, adding onions, potatoes and all sorts of odds and ends doesn't improve the flavor either. This dish should have crucian carp and sour cream, plus spices and fat. Everything else is completely superfluous.

The crucian carp is a ubiquitous beast, able to survive and breed in the most impossible conditions. As long as there is at least a little water, it will get by: the crucian carp is incredibly hardy. The best-known species are the common crucian carp (golden crucian carp), the Prussian (silver) carp and the goldfish, plus a multitude of hybrids and breeds.

I still remember from childhood how we, a bunch of young rascals, caught crucian carp with a float rod (the float was a goose feather) in some utterly impossible swamp not far from the peat workings. Then my mother or grandmother would fry the “palm-sized” crucian carp with onions, and the bigger ones were baked into an amazing dish: crucian carp in sour cream.

The second key ingredient of crucian carp in sour cream is, of course, the sour cream. I was once a little surprised when I couldn't immediately explain to friends from abroad what sour cream actually is. It turns out sour cream isn't found everywhere, although for us it is as familiar as green grass in summer. Sour cream is a cultured dairy product skimmed from soured milk, or prostokvasha. Homemade sour cream can be very high in fat. Store-bought sour cream is usually made by separating soured milk or cream. And that's at best: quite often store-bought sour cream is an awful mix of vegetable fats and emulsifiers.

My favorite homemade dish with sour cream is new potatoes country style, with sour cream, garlic and dill. That's how my grandmother made them. You couldn't tear yourself away. And borscht without sour cream belongs in the horror genre. Syrniki with sour cream are still the most traditional weekend breakfast. And I can't imagine hot potato deruny without sour cream.

Making crucian carp in sour cream couldn't be easier. The dish needs neither exotic ingredients nor any special skill. Even if you don't catch them yourself, fresh crucian carp are sold in almost any big supermarket, and the fish is never frozen. Crucian carp is a cheap, “budget” fish. Homemade sour cream is available at any local market, as you can easily see for yourself.

Ingredients

2 servings

Crucian carp (120-150 g each) 6
Full-fat homemade sour cream 1.5 cups
Butter 50 g
Salt, black pepper, flour to taste

Step-by-step recipe

I don't like this dish made with large fish. Of course, the fish will bake and cook through, but the flavor the sour cream gives during baking will just “spread” over the surface of the fish instead of soaking in. That's why it's better to use small crucian carp, the “palm-sized” or “just over palm-sized” ones, as they say.
Scale the crucian carp thoroughly, without missing any spots. Whether to trim the fins is up to you; by and large, they don't get in the way. Slit open the bellies, remove the guts and carefully remove the gills. Rinse the fish under running water.
Pat the fish completely dry with paper towels. This is important, otherwise there will be too much batter on the dish, and the fish should have a thin baked crust. In a mortar, combine 0.5 tsp of rock salt and 8-10 black (or mixed) peppercorns. Grind the spices. Sprinkle the fish with the salt and pepper mixture, literally rubbing it into them, including the heads, the belly cavity and where the gills were. Put the fish on a plate and let them sit for 15-20 mins.
Dredge the fish thoroughly in wheat flour. Since the fish have been wiped dry, not much flour will stick to them, but they will turn almost white, and that's how it should be.
Melt the butter in a large frying pan. Note: real butter, not a “spread” or the trendy “light” butters based on vegetable fats. Set aside 0.5 tsp of butter and use it to grease the bottom and sides of the baking dish for the fish.
A small digression. Unlike vegetable oil, butter tends to “burn”, so fry the fish in it carefully, without rushing things by turning up the heat under the pan. If you fry the fish in several batches, it's worth using fresh butter for each new batch.
Fry all the crucian carp one by one on both sides until they have a beautiful, ruddy golden crust. If the fish aren't fully cooked through, don't worry: frying is only the start of the cooking. The fried crust is very important; in the end it largely defines the main flavor of the dish.
Place the fried crucian carp in the buttered baking dish. The fish should be laid in a single layer, not piled up. It's fine if the tail of one fish covers part of another in places.
In very old cookbooks, the recipe for crucian carp in sour cream is very simple, with no extra ingredients. Modern recipes usually add fried onions, fried or baked potatoes, butter, a sprinkling of breadcrumbs or even cheese, and herbs. To my taste, all of that is completely superfluous. If you like, just make fried potatoes and plenty of fried onions as a side dish. But use them for serving, without adding them to the dish itself.
Next comes the climax of the preparation. Take the very best rich, fresh homemade sour cream. I'll say right away: don't add too much. For this many crucian carp, 1-1.5 cups of good thick sour cream is enough.
Using a spoon, carefully spread all the sour cream over the fried fish, trying not to miss any spots. Let the fish sit in the sour cream for 10-15 mins so that it “spreads” a little between them. No spices are needed. The most you can add is a very little melted butter, or just a few pieces of butter on top of the fish and sour cream. And even that only if the sour cream isn't rich enough.
Preheat the oven to 230-240 °C. Put the dish with the fish into the oven. Since there is quite a lot of fish and sour cream, it will take a good while for the sour cream to come to a boil. From the moment it starts to bubble, the fish bakes for about 30 mins. During this time the sour cream loses moisture and the crucian carp get a beautiful, delicious crust. If the sour cream is rich enough, a little fat will collect at the bottom of the dish, and it makes a perfectly good sauce.
If your oven bakes unevenly, go by your own experience and lower or raise the temperature and adjust the time. It's hard to give specific advice here. I remember that in my childhood the baking tray with the fish was simply put into the wood-fired stove and pulled out every 5 mins to check.
Transfer the finished fish to a large plate. If you decided to add a side dish (baked potatoes, fried onions, herbs), just arrange it around the fish.
If you like, drizzle with a little of the liquid from the baking dish. You can sprinkle the fish with a pinch of finely chopped parsley.
Serve the dish only hot, don't let it cool down. And one more thing: don't forget that crucian carp is, after all, a fish with small bones, so be careful. As a side dish, I recommend baked potatoes with rosemary.