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Fish soup: the secret of real fish soup. Video
The famous fishing soup – ukha, is best cooked in nature, over a fire, in a black charred pot, then it will turn out to be rich, nourishing, with an appetizing unforgettable aroma. It differs from other soups in a minimal set of vegetables and spices, but there are no less cooking secrets and recipes, and each housewife and each fisherman have their own.
Fish for fish soup
The classic fish soup must be cooked from fresh, and best of all, live fish. If making live fish soup seems inhumane, you can wash the fresh fish, put it in the air and wait until it falls asleep.
In order to still cook fish soup from frozen fish, you should not defrost it beforehand, it will lose half of its taste and nutritional properties.
Fish varieties are suitable for fish soup, which are distinguished by tenderness, stickiness and some sweetness. The best are ruff, perch, pike perch and whitefish, a little less – carp, asp, chub, carp, crucian carp, rudd. Other types of fish can also be the basis for fish soup, but it is better to use them as additional ones. Of some types of fish, it will not be possible to cook fish soup at all, since their meat does not have the desired properties. These are gudgeon, bream, roach, bleak, roach, ram, sabrefish, mackerel, goby. From sea fish, grenadier, cod, halibut, vomer, sea bass, squam are suitable for fish soup, but it must also be fresh.
As a rule, fish soup is cooked from several varieties of fish, but some types of fish produce a very tasty fish soup by itself, for example, pollock ear, catfish ear, pike ear, each housewife has her own recipe. For the broth, small, bony fish are used, as well as fish heads, tails, fins, and bones. At the same time, small fish can not be cleaned, boiled together with scales, but without entrails. The scales give the broth extra flavor and stickiness.
In the finished strained broth, large pieces or fillets of another type of fish are placed, this meat will already remain in the soup until the very end. Thanks to this “double” technology, the ear will receive a fragrant strong fat and not boiled fish meat in it, retaining its delicate original taste.
Secrets of fishing soup
Wuhu is usually boiled in an open container, which is why clarification of the broth is required. Housewives most often clarify the broth with egg white. To do this, pour the protein into the strained broth, mix and leave for a minute. Then strain the broth and discard the whitish flakes.
In field conditions, it is not always possible to find a chicken egg. Therefore, experienced fishermen clarify the broth as follows: add a couple of tablespoons of cold water or 5 g of vodka (per liter of broth) 50 minutes before the end of cooking.
In addition, to clarify and add additional flavor, together with fish fines, an onion or carrot is placed in the broth, which is thrown out along with the fish entrails.
Another secret of real fish soup – a minute before readiness or into a ready-made dish, a firebrand is dipped from a fire. This is an old fishing tradition that can be scientifically explained: coal removes organic pollutants and chlorine from water.
It is important not to overcook the fish while cooking, otherwise it will become tough and tasteless. River fish should be cooked for about 20 minutes, sea fish – 10-15 minutes. You can determine readiness by the type of meat: it swells, becomes milky white. The eyes turn white, harden and fall out of the sockets.
The best recipes for making fish soup
Wash and gut the small fish, place in cold water and simmer for 1 hour. Then strain the broth through cheesecloth, clarify with chicken protein. Then let the broth settle and dip into it large pieces of peeled fish, chopped onions, coarsely chopped potatoes, salt and pepper, at the end of cooking add bay leaves, a slice of lemon.
For a simple hearty fish soup, you need to boil water, boil chopped potatoes and a little cereal (millet or rice) in it until half cooked. For a liter of water you need 50-100 g of potatoes and a teaspoon of cereals. Wash the fish, gut, remove scales, remove fins and gills. Place in soup and wait until it is ready.
You can cook such fish soup from river fish: put ruffs or perches in a pot by a third of the volume of the dish, pour water, add chopped onions, peppers, bay leaves and wait for a boil. Then salt the broth and place the pieces of large fish, sorrel leaves, lemon, cook for 20 minutes. The ruffs are boiled, and the meat is easily separated from the bones.
Boneless ear. The length of the fish for such fish soup must match the depth of the pot. It is necessary to string the gutted fish under the fins with a strong thread or sticks, hang it over the pot so that only the heads are visible above the water (the ends of the sticks lie on the sides of the dishes). You can add potatoes, onions, peppers, salt to the water. The ukha is ready when the meat has fallen off the bones and is inside the pot.
For the so-called double fish soup, you will need three whole servings of fish. Clean the small fish, remove the gills and divide into two parts. First, boil the first portion for 20 minutes, drain. Then boil the second portion of small fish in the same broth, remembering to skim off the foam. Add chopped potatoes, pearl barley, onion to the strained broth. When the groats are almost ready, add the large fish, cut into pieces. Cook for another 10-15 minutes and season with spices, lemon, bay leaf. This soup will be thick, very rich and extremely tasty.