As some of you know, I am working on a Feb $10 fresh per week food challange which means that I am digging around in my freezers a bit more then I have been, which is a very good thing! Needless to say I found a package of big old shimp, about 12 of them in shell.. hmmm, I just knew that I had a fish head in there somewhere, after moving things around and putting “go though the different freezer box’s” on the never ending list of things to do, I finally found my bags of fish heads and snagged a good size one..
I had already removed the gills before I frozen it, had a good pile of cleaned fish skin in the bag, and I put put the shimp into the hot water, till they just turned pink, pulled them out, into cold and peeled them, cut them into bite size peices and into the fridge they went for later use in my soup..
Into the stock pot went, the fish head, the skin, all the jumbo shimp shells with tails on, half a onion, about a cup of dry white wine plus water, some fresh parsely (curly) an a bay leaf, Skim often and simmer for a good 30-40 min, at which point, I strained it all and back into my pot for making a interesting fish soup..
A light Seafood Soup
- 1 tsp of duck fat
- 4 oz of tiny diced peices of smoked bacon (homemade, but with rind removed)
- 1 large onion-finely diced
- 1 clove garlic-finely diced
- 6 cups or so of fish/shimp stock
- 1 large carrot-finely diced
- 2 large potatos-finely diced
- 2 stalks of Celery -finely diced
- 1/2 cup of finely diced turnip
- 1 cup of pre-cooked diced shimp
- 6 oz of haddock, winter cod or any other firm white fish, diced into bite sized peices
- Pinch of salt, fresh cracked pepper, pinch of cayenne pepper.
Start with your oil, bacon, onion, garlic, simmer till clear, then add your fish stock, and the rest of the veggies plus your fish, simmer till done, season, and add your shimp at the last min, you can also finely chop up any fresh greens you have, parsley, spinach, horseradish or chives to top dress the bowl with..
It would be very easy to turn this into a chowder if you perferred, but I wanted a light soup and a little less calories.. If used as a chowder a baking powder bisquit would be perfect, as a lighter soup choice, I am comfortable serving it as is..
Just another Day on the Farm 
Your supper sounds good! (‘Specially the Tea Biscuit part that you’re not having; )
When you make a chowder do use some potato to thicken it, or just a light cream/white sauce?
I use potato to help thicken it as well as a cream white sauce, sometimes I will also use corn starch to give it a extra thick punch, I perfer that to flour typically.
YOU make me hungry!
Dang it, that sounds better than my Swordfish steaks. I thought wow, frozen 4 large pieces at Almost Perfect, for only $4.50 a bag!
What a disappointment, normally I am a good cook, my first attempt, swordfish shoe leather. 2nd attempt followed the directions to the letter, big bla chunks of shoe leather.
I wish you had posted this 2 days ago, I would have tried this out with the Swordfish! The major shame of it all was that I did not pick up the bag of Catfish, love Catfish and it always comes out great for me.
I had fresh veggies, one of those bags with 7-9 different types in it and some boiled potatoes, which I did the veggies in halfway, they came out perfectly! A little extra virgin olive oil, with some black pepper and fresh ground garlic, wow, lovely taste. Shame of the fish though.
(did I make you hungry?? 🙂
Your veggies sound lovely! To bad about the swordfish, sounds like it could be interesting if you can figure out the correct way to cook it, the price is certainly a good one. I do like catfish but have not seen any for sale in my neck of the woods for a long time.
Wouldn’t you be better off to just go and snag some in a pond/creek nearby?
There is not much Swordfish in the Ponds around here.
Just kidding, actually the Catfish up here only do the deep channels, and most of the water is under some very bad ice this year. Catfish are hard to catch at the best of times, and in the winter, they are down in the mud and do not move very much.
Oh no, sorry! I didn’t mean right now, but later when they’re actually interested in biting. We do ice fish up here (in any normal year, that is) but not for Mud-cat. But what I really meant was that FarmGal – who is totally into wildcrafting/foraging – should try the DIY.
We both said “up here”… Turns out there’s not much difference between the two (other than about 45 minutes eastbound on the 401, that is). Too funny!
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