fish soup

Fish soup, white or red?

How do you cook fish soup?

The fish soup I am familiar with is the one that my mother and grandmother are cooking.
Different options of fish, according to the period of year and availability.
Sometimes only one kind of fish or a variety of fish.

But the main ingredients were always the same.

  • sea fish
  • potatoes
  • leaf celery
  • carrots
  • olive oil
  • lemon juice

The result

The result has always been a “white” soup with lemon juice.
A tasty soup that smells like the Mediterranean sea and offers a fresh feeling in your mouth.

A surprising tasty “red” fish-soup

I traveled to Serbia many years ago with a native Serbian friend.
During our trip, we ate in a restaurant, (forgive me I cannot remember it), next to the river Savva.

Sava and Danube river in Belgrade Serbia
Sava river, Belgrade

And there we were, served an extremely tasty fish soup.
The fish or fishes were river kind.
The soup was red from tomato and peppers.
It was spicy, not lemon-fresh.

Honestly, it is a soup I still remember in a way, and looking forward to eating it once again.
It is a very good reason to organize a trip to Serbia.

“We need a Serbian cooking lover to help us remember and cook this admirable fish soup, Anybody out there?”

A small research in my library and a surprise

Last Saturday I went to my fisherman to buy fish.
And in front of me, there were 2 big heads of “Merlangius merlangus” and their caviar!

I couldn’t resist them, I would cook a great soup with them.

And then my memory together with my desire to look into things did the rest….

Let me check my favourite cooking book series*. How do we make fish soup around Greece?

And the results were surprising.
Almost all of the recipes I read contained tomatoes in them. They were “red”, nothing like the one I am used to in my family house.
So I tried one of them.

* Traditional Greek recipes – Fytraki publishing

The final taste result

The tasting result was good but not something I would be eager to cook again and again.

Of course, I am definitely going to try the rest of the recipes I read in my book.

 

2 Qs for successful recipes

do I want to eat it tomorow?
do I want to cook it again?

Artemis