Fischgericht de fête (fish for the Tafel, on fast days or banquets)

Karpfen süßsauer — Sweet-and-Sour Carp with Gingerbread Sauce

Name: Karpfen süßsauer — Sweet-and-Sour Carp with Gingerbread Sauce
Total time: 50 min
Ingredients: Carp fillets or chunks (or trout/sea bream) — 800 g; Dark beer — 330 ml; Wine vinegar — 3 tbsp; Stale gingerbread — 60 g; Onion — 2; Raisins — 40 g; Pitted prunes — 6; Honey — 1 tbsp; Ginger, clove, pepper, bay leaf, salt — to taste

FestiveDocumented🍋 🍯 🧂moyen50 min

A carp poached in a glossy brown sauce, where beer, vinegar, raisins, and prunes are bound with crumbled gingerbread: a great süßsauer classic, at once tangy, sweet, and deeply spiced.

Fischgericht de fête (fish for the Tafel, on fast days or banquets)

A carp poached in a glossy brown sauce, where beer, vinegar, raisins, and prunes are bound with crumbled gingerbread: a great süßsauer classic, at once tangy, sweet, and deeply spiced.

I am chided for dispatching my meals, and yet before a sweet-and-sour carp, I consent to linger, for the conversation of honest folk is well worth the patience. At the Hanover table, we would cook the fish very slowly in beer and vinegar, then thicken the sauce with a crushed Pfefferkuchen, with raisins and prunes for sweetness. There, that is a little pre-established harmony of the mouth: the sour and the sweet, opposed and yet reconciled, together make the best of all possible dishes.
— Leibniz

Ingredients

•Carp (or other freshwater fish) — a fine piece, cut in chunks (main ingredient)
•Dark beer — a good bowlful (aromatic cooking liquid)
•Vinegar — a splash (acidity (süß)sauer)
•Stale gingerbread (Pfefferkuchen) — a few slices (sauce thickener)
•Onion — 1 to 2 (aromatic base)
•Raisins and prunes — a handful (sweetness)
•Honey — to taste (sweet balance)
•Spices (ginger, clove, pepper, bay leaf) — to taste (spiced bouquet)

How it was made : Sweet-and-sour carp appears in German cuisine from the Baroque period; thickening the sauce with gingerbread (Lebkuchen/Pfefferkuchen) is a long-attested technique, especially in Saxony and the Rhineland. Carp, raised in ponds in monasteries and estates, was the festive fish par excellence, served on fast days as well as at banquets.