Yuriy Chernous · Kyiv, Ukraine

Silver Carp with Carrot Ratatouille and Radish Carpaccio

Time1 h
LevelMedium
Fish and seafood
Silver Carp with Carrot Ratatouille and Radish Carpaccio

There are dozens of silver carp recipes. And today I’ll share with you something really cool. Not just a ‘common recipe’, but a ‘wow-recipe’. It’s a common opinion that silver carp is mainly for every day cooking, and will not suit festive or somewhat more sophisticated table. But this recipe challenges stereotypes. Silver carp recipe from chef Yury Chernous is unusual in every sense. Just see here, most tender silver carp fillet cooked in dough and served with carrot ratatouille on reddish carpaccio. Sounds as a music for connoisseur! So scrumptious, so delicious! Try it!

Adapted for a home kitchen by our editors from Yuriy Chernous's restaurant recipe. Yuriy Chernous cooks a bar of silver carp sous vide, chills it, wraps it in puff pastry with mustard and bakes it briefly, then serves it on blanched black radish with carrots cooked sous vide in orange. At home the raw fish goes straight into the pastry and bakes in a hot oven, which cooks the fish in the time the pastry needs to puff. The carrots cook in a pan with orange juice and zest, and cod or another firm white fish can replace silver carp. Not yet tested from this page.

Ingredients

Method

  1. Heat the oven to 200°C (400°F).
  2. Pat the fish dry, season it lightly with salt and keep it in the fridge until you wrap it.
  3. Unroll the pastry and cut it into 4 rectangles of about 12 × 14 cm.
  4. Spread 1 tablespoon of mustard down the middle of each rectangle.
  5. Lay a bar of fish on the mustard, fold the long sides over so they overlap by 1 cm and press the seam closed.
  6. Pinch the ends shut and set the parcels seam-side down on the lined baking sheet.
  7. Chill the parcels for 10 minutes, then brush them with beaten egg.
  8. Bake for 18–20 minutes, until the pastry is puffed and deep golden and a thermometer in the fish reads 56–60°C (133–140°F).
  9. Meanwhile, peel the carrots, slice them lengthwise 1.5 mm thick with the peeler or mandoline and cut the slices into strips 1 cm wide.
  10. Squeeze the orange; you need about 80 ml of juice.
  11. Heat the oil in the frying pan over medium heat and fry the carrots for 2 minutes.
  12. Add the orange juice, one strip of zest, the spices and a pinch of salt and simmer for 5–6 minutes, until the carrots are tender and glazed; remove the zest.
  13. Peel the radish and cut it into thin rounds, about 2 mm.
  14. Bring a small pan of water to a boil with the second strip of orange zest and blanch the radish for 2–3 minutes, until slightly translucent but still with some bite.
  15. Drain the radish, let it cool and dress it with the lemon juice and a pinch of salt.
  16. Lay the radish slices overlapping on warm plates, like a carpaccio.
  17. Trim the ends of each parcel to show the fish and set it on the radish.
  18. Add the carrots alongside and finish with the capers, microgreens and flowers.
What we changed for home
  • Sous vide pre-cooking of the fish left out; the raw fish is wrapped and baked The chef gives no temperature for the sous vide step. A bar of white fish 2.5–3 cm thick cooks through in the 18–20 minutes the pastry needs.
  • Oven raised from 140°C (285°F) for 10 minutes to 200°C (400°F) for 18–20 minutes At 140°C (285°F) puff pastry neither rises nor crisps in 10 minutes; it needs a hot oven.
  • Silver carp can be replaced with cod, hake or pike-perch Silver carp is sold mainly in Central European and Asian markets and is full of fine Y-shaped bones; any thick, firm white fillet works.
  • Pastry wraps the fish completely, and the ends are trimmed after baking The chef's 5 × 12 cm strip is too narrow to wrap a thick bar of fish. A full wrap keeps the fish moist, and trimming still shows the filling as the chef plates it.
  • Beaten egg added to glaze the pastry It gives the pastry an even, deep golden colour.
  • Carrots cooked in the pan with orange juice and zest instead of sous vide for 40 minutes Strips 1.5 mm thick soften in the pan within minutes and take on the orange flavour the bag gave them.
  • Black radish blanched for 2–3 minutes and can be replaced with daikon or watermelon radish Thin slices turn limp after 5 minutes; 2–3 minutes takes off the sharpness and keeps some bite. Black radish is a seasonal, mostly European root.

The dish in the photograph was cooked by the restaurant for this story. Photo: Oleksandr Slyadnyev.

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