As a holiday gift, I’m giving you the recipe for one of my all time favorite things to eat in the winter: Fish Head Soup. I asked my mom to teach me how to make it the other day. Unfortunately, that means some of the measurements are not exact. I did my best to catch things and measure them before my mom threw it in, but sometimes I failed. Use this as a guideline, then taste, and adjust to preference.
Traditionally, Fish Head Soup is made with a fish head, but they messed up at the supermarket. My mom asked them to cut the fish in half and instead of cutting it in half cross-wise, they cut it length-wise. You can make it either way.
Fish Head Soup
- 3 dried Chinese black mushrooms
- 1 large green bean starch sheet
- 1.35 lbs fish half
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- 2.3 ounces fatty pork
- 1 teaspoon soy sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon cornstarch
- 1 1/2 teaspoon Broad Bean Paste with Chili
- 1 1/2 teaspoon Hoisin sauce
- 4 cups water
- 2/3 cup bamboo slices (from a can)
- 2″ chunk of ginger, peeled, cut in half, smashed
- 1 chicken bouillon cube
- 1 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon sugar
- 3 pieces frozen firm tofu, sliced
- 1/2 cup wide sliced Chinese leek (some green, some white)
Instructions
1. Soak mushrooms in 1 cup of warm water for 4 hours. Soak green been starch sheet in warm water for 1 hour. Remove from water and tear into pieces (roughly 2″ squares) by hand.
2. Cut fish in half, wash, and dry. Heat oil in a wok until you see smoke. Fry the fish skin side down, until it looks cooked through and flesh side looks opaque. Turn it over and fry until golden. Remove to a paper towel.
3. In a small bowl, stir together pork, soy sauce, and corn starch. Set aside.
4. Squeeze water out of mushrooms and reserve liquid. Slice mushrooms. Set aside.
5. In a medium sized pot, heat 1 teaspoon of the oil you just fried the fish in. Add pork mixture and brown lightly. Stir in Broad Bean Paste with Chili and Hoisin Sauce. Add 4 cups of water, fish, bamboo slices, ginger, mushrooms and their liquid, bouillon, salt, and sugar. Bring to a boil.
6. Add frozen tofu. Cover and simmer for 5 minutes. Stir in the starch sheets and leeks and serve. (Everything except the starch sheets and leek can be made a day ahead and refrigerated. When you want to serve, bring it to a boil, then add starch sheets and leek to serve.)
OK, I’m totally retarded and forgot to take a picture of the final product. Guess you’ll have to make it to see it.
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fish head is used a lot in Bengali food. My favourite is ‘maccher mudo diye daal’. This means daal flavoured with fish head. I truly began to feel at home at Bombay only after I began to make it here. Another popular dish is ‘mudi ghonto’ which is a garam masala based fish head curry cooked with fine, firm rice. Fish head is also used to flavour dishes made with cabbages, gourd or spinach. Bnegalis love fish much more than they like vegetables!
Knife, I’ll have to try Bengali food. It sounds great!
I’m a single mother of three and I’ve had this catfish head for a month. Can you give me a simplier recipe in order to prepare it?
Anonymous, a month? I hope it’s in the freezer. If not, throw it out. For simpler, try stewing it with some canned tomatoes and other veggies. If you have small children, be careful with the bones and pieces.