FISH SOUP
This is a tasty way to use up leftovers from Holiday feasts which might otherwise have gone bad in your refrigerator or gone into the trash.
After a solid month of eating rich food, something light and mild might even be a relief.
Fish head (s) leftover from a whole fish dinner.
Lean fish preferable.
Collard green stems (stems of other greens may be substituted).
Whatever aromatics and/or herbs you have on hand from the holidays that you really need to use up before they go bad
coarse salt
neutral cooking oil
a mild acid (i.e., lemon juice, white wine, cooking sherry)
plenty of water
Start by brining the fish head (or heads) for an hour in salty water. Especially if you removed the heads before roasting the fish, but even if you didn't. It makes a big difference in reducing the TMA regardless. Drain the fish head afterward, you won't need to save the brine.
Meanwhile, salt the collard green stems and the aromatics and then sweat them in neutral oil in a stock pot. This usually takes about ten minutes on low heat. Once the vegetables are sweating, you can put the fish head (s) in the pot and add clean water until the ingredients are well covered. At this point, also add your herbs and mild acid to your personal taste. Bring to a low boil and then let it cook at low boil for ten minutes, uncovered. Skim foam off the top as needed.
Once ten minutes is up, taste test the broth. It should be a fairly mild fish broth at this point, and if this is how you like it, then you can remove it from the heat at this point and move onto the next step. If it isn't yet as strong as you like it, reduce heat to low simmer, cover and let simmer for thirty more minutes. Skim the foam and taste test it again, and if it still isn't as strong as you want then let it simmer covered for five-minute increments, taste testing all the while until it is at the strength that you want.
If at some point it accidentally becomes too strong you can fix this by adding more water. If it's not salty enough, add more salt.
Once the broth is at the flavor that you want, remove the stock pot from the heat. Carefully drain the hot soup through a sieve into another pot and set that second pot where it will stay warm. Sort through the ingredients remaining in your sieve. Some of them you might want to serve in the soup, like chopped vegetables, so you can add those back in. The fish head (s) should be soft enough at this point to easily peel back the skin and carefully remove the tender meat so that you can add it back into the soup. Serve the soup with toast, crackers, noodles, whatever you like.
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