Cooking fish soup on the fly - recipe

Start soup with a good stock. Picture: Wanda Hennig

Start soup with a good stock. Picture: Wanda Hennig

Published Oct 23, 2013

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Cape Town - Staying in somebody else’s home holds its frustrations for a cook. They may not be as enamoured as you are of what goes on in the kitchen. They may order in a lot of the time, and go out to restaurants for the rest. They may not even own a wooden spoon, or a peeler.

Or they may be like the estate agent guru who lives high up in Fresnaye in a mansion so palatial that kings and emperors would feel out of place, with a vast kitchen that has everything a seasoned chef could desire – yet has never been used.

It was years ago that I found myself in that kitchen, for reasons I don’t remember, and what resonated is how proud he was of it.

I thought: what’s the point of having the best kitchen in the world and never using it, like an Einstein who wastes his brain by filling it with trivia? Why not donate the money it cost to someone who can cook but can only afford a rudimentary kitchen (that would be me)? Or build a games room for the staff to use when they’re off duty? Or turn it into a basketball pitch? Or fill it with water and tropical fish?

Staying in your relatives’ beach flat means making a good shopping list and making sure you don’t forget anything on it. So it was my indaba that I arrived back, just after the shops had closed, having forgotten that I had wanted to start making my seafood soup by whipping up a fish stock first.

I hadn’t bought celery, or carrots, or leeks. So I made do, as one does. We had some leftover courgettes, so they would have to substitute for most of the absent vegetables. I rummaged in the crisper and found a stick of lemongrass. Okay, that would go in. I had bought garlic and ginger, so threw in half a garlic bulb, cut clean through the middle, husks and all. There was some fresh ginger, so I roughly chopped an inch or so of it and in that went too.

The central element of a fish stock, of course, is fish. As long as nobody coming to dinner is allergic to shellfish, you can throw in the shells of prawns and crayfish, heads and all. I cut the tail ends off the dorado I had bought and tossed them in. Enough cold water to cover, and it goes on a bubbling heat until the stock has reduced by a good two-thirds, or a little more. Then, strain it into another pot.

What’s left is a flavourful liquid that is only as good as what has gone into it. This was not the finest stock I had ever made, because of the unwanted omissions. I would have preferred to have added the celery, carrots and leeks. But the ginger and lemongrass and garlic made up for them to a degree, with extra reduction intensifying the flavours until I was relatively happy with it.

But the point is worth making: a stock does not have to be by the book. You can wing it, as I had to here. See what you have, and make a stick of it. It beats giving up.

At least there was a wooden spoon in the beach flat. (It’s in the second drawer down, Dawn.)

But the stock is only the start of anything resembling a fish soup, chowder or bouillabaisse. There are some recipes that will not even call for a fish stock or fumé as a starting point, but I hold that any of these broths is improved by the foundation of a good stock, the base of flavour on which all else is built.

Start by adding roughly chopped onion, garlic, leeks, carrots and celery to a pot, cover with cold water, add a couple of bay leaves, five or six peppercorns, perhaps a star anise, and a stick of bashed lemongrass if you like. These days I have taken to adding a husk of mace to a stock. It does much the same job that bay leaves do.

Add fish heads, tail ends, and crustacea shells if you like, bring to a boil and reduce by at least two-thirds. Strain into a pot, discard the solids, and return to the heat.

Add 250ml dry white wine and reduce to a fairly thick liquid.

Add one or all of the following: a dash of brandy, sherry, a liqueur such as Van der Hum or Triple Sec, and reduce. It should be sticky but runny. Now add 250ml tomato purée, 250ml water and the juice of one orange, bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer for five minutes to meld the flavours. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

If you’re happy with the flavour and texture, you can add any pieces of fish, calamari, mussels and/or prawns or shrimps you are using, starting with the calamari and fish, and cook for a few minutes. No fish takes an age to cook, Daisy, so this won’t take long at all.

If you’re using calamari steaks, as I did, pat them dry then score one side into a diamond pattern, using a sharp knife and being careful not to cut too deeply into the flesh. The steaks can then be sliced into strips and can be the first to go into the broth, followed by piece of firm fish (I wouldn’t use hake, as it will disintegrate) then prawns and, finally, shrimps.

I finished the soup with fresh basil torn into small strips, because the big empty Woolies at the coast did not have coriander. - Weekend Argus

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