Fish soup: two fish, a stock from the heads and dill at the end
Fish soup divides people, and the reason is usually the same: overcooked fish. A piece of cod needs about six minutes in hot stock; overcooked, it falls into fibres and starts to smell fishy in the bad sense. The second rule is two fish rather than one: lean cod gives firm pieces, oily salmon gives the broth body and colour. Don't throw away the heads and bones — all the flavour is in them.
Your own work in that: 40 min.
- Stock 30 min
- Vegetables 25 min
- Fish and cream 15 min
Step by step
0 / 6 doneMake a stock from the heads
Rinse the heads and bones, remove the gills (they turn bitter) and cover with cold water. Add the vegetables and spices, bring to the boil, skim and simmer 25 minutes over low heat, uncovered. Longer is pointless: cooked too long, fish stock starts to turn bitter.
Ingredients: 700 g fish heads and bones · 2000 ml water · 1 pcs carrot · 1 pcs parsley root · 1 pcs leek · 2 pcs bay leaves · 5 pcs allspice berries · 8 pcs peppercorns
TipUnlike chicken stock, fish stock is never cooked for hours. The bones give their flavour in 20–30 minutes, and after that only bitterness and cloudiness.
Twenty-five minutes, uncoveredStrain through a fine sieve
Strain the stock through a fine sieve lined with muslin into a clean pot. Don't press or force the bones: particles that get through cloud the soup. You should have about 1.5 litres of clear stock.
Muslin in the sieve, no pressingSweat the vegetables and simmer
In a second pot sweat the chopped onion in butter 5 minutes, add the carrot, celeriac and potato cut into 1.5 cm dice. Pour in the stock and simmer 15 minutes, until the potatoes are tender but still holding their shape.
Ingredients: 500 g potatoes · 2 pcs carrots · 1 pcs celeriac · 1 pcs onion · 30 g butter · 2 tsp salt · ½ tsp white pepper
A centimetre-and-a-half dice, fifteen minutesAdd the fish for six minutes
Cut the fish into 3 cm cubes and check with your fingers for bones. Lower the heat so the soup barely trembles and add the fish. Cook exactly 6 minutes. Don't stir vigorously — the delicate pieces fall apart at the slightest push of a spoon.
Ingredients: 400 g cod fillet · 300 g salmon fillet · 200 ml whipping cream (30%) · 1 bunch dill · ½ pcs lemon, juice
TipFish is done when it turns <b>opaque and flakes</b> under a fork. If it starts breaking up in the soup by itself, you are already two minutes late.
Barely trembling soup, exactly six minutesTemper the cream
Take the pot off the heat. Pour the cream into a bowl and add hot soup a ladle at a time, stirring, until it is lukewarm. Only then pour it into the pot. Whipping cream copes with heat better than thinner sour cream, but poured cold straight into hot soup it can split into fine flecks — especially once the sour lemon goes in.
Ingredients: 400 g cod fillet · 300 g salmon fillet · 200 ml whipping cream (30%) · 1 bunch dill · ½ pcs lemon, juice
Tempered a ladle at a time, never straight from the fridgeFinish with dill and lemon
Season with salt, white pepper and the juice of half a lemon — the acid is not obvious here, but it is what sharpens the fish and takes the flatness out of the soup. Finally stir in a whole bunch of chopped dill. Serve at once.
A whole bunch of dill, off the heat
Before you start
Where to get the heads
Ask at the fish counter for frames and heads — they usually cost next to nothing or are free. It is the cheapest route to a stock that beats any cube by a distance.
Without cream
Polish fish soup is also made clear, unenriched. Add a spoon of butter at the end and half again as much lemon — it comes out lighter and more distinctly of fish.
Other fish
Hoki or hake instead of cod, trout or mackerel instead of salmon. The rule stands: one lean fish, one oily. Cod alone gives a watery soup, salmon alone too heavy a one.
Reheating
Warm it very gently, never to a boil, or the fish disintegrates and the cream splits. Best eaten the same day; on the second it is noticeably worse.
