Courtesy of chef Levente Koppány
Carp: 1 kg
Sea bream: 400 g
Onion: 2 heads
Salt
Paprika
Hot paprika powder
Carp: 500 g, only the meat
Cream: 100 g
Salt: 7 g
Lemon zest: 1
Semolina flour: 100 g
BL flour: 100 g
Egg yolks: 110 g
Levente Koppány shares his zero-waste dish highlighting the beauty of native freshwater fish from his home country, Hungary.
The winning young chef and keen fisherman chose the often-overlooked lake carp to highlight just how delicious this fish is, after becoming sensitised to the plight of fish like rainbow trout and the ecological impact of hydro dams.
“This dish is really simple to make, traditional, and tasty. I hope you'll enjoy it,” Koppány says.
Find out how to make his dish in the steps below:
First of all, it's really important to chose a freshwater fish. As a fisherman, I caught the fish last night in lake Balaton.
To prepare the fish, remove all the fish-scales, the guts, tail, fin, pharyngeal teeth (only the carp has them - If you don't want to bother just throw away the whole head) and the eyes.
Wash them well.
We need 500g of the carp meat to make our pasta filling, so remove that amount.
Slice up the rest, chop the head into two pieces. Place them in a pot.
Chop the onion into one centimetre cubes and add to the pot.
Fill up with water, just to cover, around 1-1.5 litres, and season it with one and a half teaspoons of salt.
Put it on a high heat, bring it to boil as soon as possible.
Add the paprika powder and boil for one hour.
When it's done, sieve it. We only need the soup.
Chef tip: I recommend adding a bit of mustard and white wine vinegar to the soup. its not traditional but worth to try.
Blend the carp with the robotblender until it's smooth. Add the double cream, salt and lemon zest, and blend it for another minute. Place it in a piping bag.
Mix all the ingredients well, make a dough, cover it with clingfilm and rest in the fridge overnight.
Roll the dough out in the pasta machine until you reach number one.
Cut rounds and fill with the carp mousse.
Make tortellini. The leftover dough is also good to use later. Cut it up (julienne) and dry it out. You can use it for your meat or fish soup next time.
Cook the tortellini in salted, boiling water. When it's fresh, you'll need three minutes. If it's frozen, you'll need one to two minutes extra.
Place the tortellini in a soup bowl, and pour the hot soup over. You can use some fish roe to decorate and add same extra flavour as I did (I used trout roe).
Enjoy.
