Fish heads are most often despised by the hostesses and mercilessly thrown away. This is completely wrong, because it is from them that you can cook a delicious soup - rich, thick, fatty. Experienced fishermen always make broth from heads, fins and even scales.
The best fish for cooking a clear broth is considered to be pike perch, ruff, perch, whitefish. Soup from asp, carp, carp, chub, rudd is also delicious. Saltwater fish are also good - for example, cod, halibut, macrorus and others. From the heads of sturgeon, beluga, salmon, nelma, stellate sturgeon, you can cook a very fatty and rich soup.
It is believed that the fish soup will be tastier if it is cooked from 2-3 varieties of fish.
In addition to heads, cut fins, tails, skin along with scales, in rare cases - milk are used for cooking broth. Trebuch and intestines are considered waste material, especially since many fish (especially river and pond fish) have various parasites.
The severed fish heads must be thoroughly washed and the gills removed. The gills give bitterness during cooking, so it is advisable to cut them out immediately. Then put the heads in cold water and put them on the stove. If they are frozen, you do not need to defrost them, otherwise you can lose some of the taste. Throwing meat into boiling water will also be a mistake, since it will not cook evenly this way. Do not allow too much boil, it is better to cook over low heat. Traditionally, fish soup is boiled in an enamel or earthenware.
The cooking time depends on the type of fish. Small heads of sea fish will cook much faster than large pieces of river fish. It is important to remember: the total time of heat treatment of fish should not be less than 20 minutes, since only under such conditions all parasites completely die.
To make the broth more aromatic and healthy, various roots are added to it, for example, carrots, onions, horseradish, celery, etc. It is not necessary to chop them thoroughly, since they will still be separated from the broth along with the fish residues. 5 minutes before the end of cooking, you can add red and black peppers, bay leaves and other spices.
The finished broth must be thoroughly filtered through a sieve or cheesecloth. In general, the contents of fish heads are quite edible, but not everyone dares to add it to their diet.
On the basis of the resulting aromatic and rich broth, you can cook any soup. Traditionally, potatoes and eggs are added to the fish soup; fish goes well with cabbage, rice, pearl barley or barley grits. To make the broth golden brown, you can put carrots sauteed with onions in it. Sometimes boiled sauerkraut or pickled cucumbers stewed in a pan with onions are sometimes added to the broth of fatty fish. Thanks to such "zest" the soup becomes slightly sour and resembles pickle.
To enhance the aroma of fish soup, fishermen add 50 g of vodka to the finished soup.
Some housewives separately stew large pieces of fish or other meat in a frying pan and add it to soup or to a plate before serving. You can cook meat directly in the broth from the heads - the main thing is not to overcook it, otherwise it will become harsh and less sweet. For children, it is better to cook the fish in advance and carefully separate the meat from the bones, then put it in the soup. At the end of cooking or directly into a plate, you can crumble greens: dill, parsley or celery.
