Fish Heads Soup      魚 頭 湯

Fish heads soup is an extremely flavoursome, soothing and textured soup. Whenever I have a dry, itchy throat I tend to make this soup or just whenever I managed to buy either cod or salmon fish heads from the fishmongers. I’m sure every Chinese household will have their own authentic recipe version but this one I learned from my family.

Fish heads is great for soups as they retain their skin, cartilage, tendons and bones as a whole and does not fall apart in the soup. Once pan-fried the skin seals the natural sweet flavour meats. The soft cartilage and tendons melts in the mouth. Then there is the softest, most tender piece of meat-the cheeks!

If you just want to drink the soup and toss the fish heads out then that is fine. For me the highlight is dismantling the heads and actually eating it. I even eat around the eye sockets, below the gill plates and both the cheeks. Fish heads contains so much goodness, cartilage, tendons and omega goodness that I really don’t want to toss it out.

Many people assume large fish heads does not contain much meat BUT in fact they do. They have large cheeks filled with soft, tender meat and the bits surrounds the heads are cushioned with meats. Buy any large fish heads from your fishmongers whether it is salmon, cod, haddock or your own preference. You may ask the fishmongers to clean it for you. Fish heads is often used for soups as they contains the most favourable part of the whole fish plus it contains omega goodness for your health. If you love fish you will like this dish.

Serves: 4
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 22 minutes

Ingredients
2 litres water
2 large fish heads
5 slices ginger
2 tomatoes
2 onions
1 fish stock cube
1 bunch coriander
1 leek
1 garlic clove
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
½ teaspoon salt

Methods
• Bring water and fish stock cube to boil on a high heat.

• Prep the vegetables by washing, shredding the leeks finely, crush the garlic, cut the tomatoes in wedges, slice the ginger, finely dice the onions, wash and roughly chop the coriander and set aside.

• Heat the oil in a wok on a medium heat, add ginger, leeks, salt, onions and garlic. Stir fry for 5 minutes until soften. Add fish heads and fry each sides for 2 minutes. Transfer the contents into the pot. Cover with a lid and cook on a medium heat for 15 minutes. Add coriander, stir and serve.

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