Cleaning and Filleting Carp

As with all fish, carp should be gutted, gilled, and packed in ice immediately after catching. If circumstances make this impractical, you can preserve most of the value and flavor of the meat if you keep your carp alive in a wire basket submerged in water until the last possible moment.

When preparing carp for the recipes included here, fillet as you normally would. Then score the fillets, cutting two thirds of the way through every quarter or half inch in order to let the heat thoroughly soften the internal small bones.

Cleaning and Filleting Catfish/Bullheads

Because catfish and bullheads are completely scaleless, they must be skinned before cooking, unless they're big enough to fillet, in which case the skin would be automatically removed. Once the catfish is skinned, you'll notice a band of darker red flesh along both flanks parallel to the backbone. These bands are very richly flavored meat, usually too strong for most tastes, so you might want to simply scrape or cut them away before proceeding.

Cleaning Suckers

Although aficionados maintain that the best flavor comes from pan-frying suckers, the white flaky flesh is filled with tiny bones throughout. For this reason, you may prefer the pickled sucker recipe included here which effectively softens the bones. Whichever recipe you choose to try, just using the large upper muscle mass and discarding the rest of the fish will dispense with a majority of the troublesome bones.

Click to Listen!