Spicy Grilled Bighead Carp Taco Bowl

When it comes to the name game, Asian, now known as invasive, carp got the short end of the stick. It doesn't help that they didn't do very well in the looks department, either. The name carp brings with it negative connotations for American diners. Decades of experience with the bottom-feeding common carp have led anglers to lump all fish with the name into the same live well as a mushy, muddy-tasting dining option.

But unlike their bottom-feeding cousins, invasive carp like bigheads and silvers are filter feeders, spending their life cruising through the water feeding on plankton. That means, as far as fish go, they are extremely healthy as a food. Because they are nearly exclusively vegetarian, and because they spend their lifetime high in the water column, these carp have much lower levels of mercury and other harmful chemicals when compared with more commonly consumed fish like catfish.

Besides being tasty, invasive carp are dangerously plentiful. If you've ever spent time on a Midwestern river or lake with an invasive carp problem and seen firsthand the schools of inchlong fry that stretch for hundreds of yards in every direction, then you have a good feel for just how invasive and fertile these fish really are. Without some means of control, they will rapidly overpopulate the waters they inhabit, pushing out native species like bass, crappies, bluegills, and catfish.

How can they be controlled? Recreational bowfishermen can help to control numbers on a given waterway, but the most effective way is through commercial fishing. For commercial fishing to be a viable option, there needs to be a market. If people would give the fish an open-minded chance, we'd see them at every supermarket and on every restaurant menu around. They are a cheap, nearly inexhaustible source of very tasty protein.

Like most fish, they will taste better if you remove the strip of dark red meat that lies on the outside of the fish, just beneath the skin. Simply fillet it away with a sharp knife. Now, I'm not suggesting that you forget about your favorite panfish and switch solely to these invasive carp for future meals — I'm just asking you to give them an honest chance. Several times, I've been a part of blind tastings where we fried both Asian carp and catfish from the same waters and served them side by side. Over and over, our guests chose the carp as the better-tasting option, so don't let the name throw you. Just give it a try, then decide for yourself.

For this recipe, we took boneless fillets of bighead carp, dusted them with our favorite taco seasoning, and grilled them until they flaked apart. We served them over a bowl of rice alongside a black been salsa and some sliced red cabbage marinated in apple cider vinegar.