Frozen Carp Supplier: Common, Grass, Silver and Bighead Carp

Product overview

Carp is a family name that covers several quite different fish, and buyers rarely accept one in place of another. Common carp (Cyprinus carpio), deep-bodied and usually fully scaled, is the carp of Central European holiday tables and of many Asian, Middle Eastern and African kitchens. Grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella), long and cylindrical with firm white flesh, is a staple of Cantonese cooking, steamed whole, sliced for hot pot or cut into fillets. Silver carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix) has small scales and soft, fine-textured meat that processors favor for fish balls, surimi and mince. Bighead carp (Hypophthalmichthys nobilis, formerly Aristichthys nobilis) is prized above all for its large head.

All four are farmed on a vast scale in China, where silver, bighead and grass carp have been raised together in ponds for centuries, each using a different food source in the same water. Common carp is also farmed widely in Indonesia, Vietnam, Bangladesh and India. We source carp from partner producers in these origins rather than from Thai farms, and every offer states the species, the farming country and the processing plant. Species are packed and labeled separately as specified in the order, so a carton of grass carp does not contain silver carp of a similar size.

Carp formats follow the cooking traditions of each market. Whole round and gutted fish, scaled or scale-on, are graded by weight per fish, from 300⁠–⁠500 g common carp up to bighead of 3 kg and above. Grass and common carp are also cut into cross-section steaks and skin-on fillets, and silver carp is offered as headed and gutted fish or block-frozen steaks for processors. Bighead heads are cut behind the gill cover, with the gills removed, and packed whole or split for steaming. Every carp carries fine intermuscular Y-bones that filleting cannot take out, so fillets for frying markets can be scored, cut at close intervals across the flesh so the small bones soften in the pan.

Before shipment, thawed-sample checks for earthy taste, bruising and blood spots, scale loss, belly condition in ungutted fish and gill color in whole fish and heads can be arranged, and whether the carp were held in clean water before harvest can be stated on the offer. Typical buyers are importers serving Chinese, South Asian, Middle Eastern, African and Eastern European communities, Chinese restaurants that cook fish-head soup with tofu or steamed fish head with chopped chili, and fish ball and surimi makers working with silver carp. For the Indian major carps, see frozen rohu and catla, and carp scales from processing lines are supplied as dried fish scales.