I’ve always wanted to buy a whole salmon and to fillet it myself, then freeze the meat. And 2 weeks ago I did it! bought a 3kg salmon, portioned it into fillet bags and was left with a spine, tail and head… which obviously I didn’t throw away! I divided it into 2 bags which later formed the base of 2 lovely soups. Attempt #2 is described below (as it is the most complete, so far) 🙂 Enjoy!
Salmon fish soup
Servings: 4
Calories: 200kcal
Ingredients
- 1/2 salmon head
- 1/2 salmon tail&spine
- 1/4 celery root
- 1/2 red bell pepper (seedless core included for extra taste)
- 4 carrots thin
- 4 potatoes medium size
- 1 small red onion
- 1 garlic clove
- 500 ml unsweetened tomato juice
- 1 tbsp unsalted dried vegetable mix
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1/4 bundle lovage for serving
- juice from a lemon optionally
Instructions
- Peel all vegetables and leave whole. Add the potatoes to a bowl with water.
- Add cold water to a medium sized pot, add the vegetables (except the potatoes), the dried vegetable mix and set to boil on medium heat. Skim the foam when needed.
- Boil until the vegetables are halfway-cooked, then add the fish pieces and boil for 15 minutes together on medium heat.
- Take the fish out of the soup and leave to rest in a colander.
- In the meantime, strain the soup through a soup sieve to another pot. This step is needed because during the boiling process, the fish bones can come loose and may end up in your soup bowl. You want a clean soup bowl 🙂
- Cut the vegetables as you like and put them to the strained soup pot and back to medium heat (I discarded the onion and garlic clove at this step as I don't like them all soggy).
- Largely dice the potatoes, then them and the tomato juice to the soup pot. Season with salt and pepper and close the lid.
- Take the salmon meat off the bones carefully (leave in large pieces) and add them to the soup pot when the potatoes are halfway cooked.
- Reduce the heat to a minimum (to keep the fish meat in large pieces) and leave to simmer until all vegetables are cooked. Add a glass of hot water if you think that there isn't enough liquid in the pot.
- Turn off the heat, season with salt and pepper if needed. If you choose to use the lemon juice, this is the moment to add it to the soup. However, the tomato juice is also acidic and you might not need the lemon juice, it's completely after you.
- Chop the lovage leaves and add them to the soup pot before serving.
Notes
I collected about 150g of meat off the bones (left it there on purpose from the start when I portioned the fish with the idea that the soup will use some of the meat from the bones).Â
