One of the most delicious fish soups is pike perch ear, which differs from other first courses with its unique taste and aroma that will please even the most picky gourmets. Cooking this dish is very easy and simple, the main thing is to know some of its secrets and nuances, and then the result will be simply amazing.
Essential Ingredients
Before you start looking for a recipe for pike perch soup that is more suitable for you, you should purchase the necessary components to create this dish. So, first of all, we need the fish itself (pike perch), and it is better that it is fresh, just caught by the fisherman from the water. In addition to her, we still need potatoes, carrots, onions, peas of black pepper, bay leaf, parsley with dill, vegetable oil and salt. In addition, if desired, millet can be added to the ear to make the soup thicker and more nutritious, cream to make it even more rich, and even vodka, the taste and smell of which will not be heard, but it will make the soup brighter and more transparent.
Preparing pike perch for cooking fish soup
Focusing on the photo of zander soup, you can immediately see that the fish in this soup is already completely disassembled and ready to eat. Therefore, before you start cooking the ear, pike perch will need to be cleaned and cut. First, you will need to take a sharp knife and thoroughly clean the fish from scales, wielding a knife like a scraper. Then it will be necessary to cut off the tail and fins of the pike perch, leaving them in order to cook the broth, rip open the stomach of the fish and completely gut it, getting rid of all the insides. Next, we cut off the pike perch, but it is not necessary to throw it away; it will fit perfectly for one of the recipes for fish soup. And at the end, we divide the resulting zander carcass into portions, because the initial weight of the zander is 5-10 kg, which means that even in a disassembled form, you can cook several dishes from one fish.
The simplest home-made zander ear
For the classic recipe for fish soup we need:
- a kilogram of prepared zander;
- 800 grams of potatoes;
- a whole medium-sized carrot;
- large onion;
- 5 peas of black pepper;
- 3 bay leaves;
- salt, ground pepper and spices to your taste.
The first step is to prepare the broth, for which the tail and fins will need to be poured with two liters of water and send them to boil for half an hour. During this time, we clean the vegetables and cut the fish into small pieces, so that later it is convenient to lay in bowls and eat. Then we cut the potatoes into cubes, three carrots on a medium grater, and cut the onion in half rings.
After half an hour, tails with fins are caught from the water and thrown out, and in the pan we add a potato onion instead. While they are boiling, let the carrots over medium heat. As soon as the broth with onions and potatoes boils for about 5 minutes, we put carrots and fish in it, as well as salt with spices and bay leaves. After this, the soup is cooked for another 20 minutes, and before the end of the cooking process, only chopped dill and parsley will be added to the ear.
Ear with cream
It will turn out very tasty to cook the pike perch ear at home, if the previous recipe is slightly modified and cream is added to the soup. In this case, in addition to all the ingredients, as in the classic recipe, you will also need to take a glass of cream and a bunch of green onions weighing 300 grams.
For such a fish soup, you do not need to pre-cook a special broth. You just need to peel the vegetables first, then cut the potatoes into cubes, carrots into strips, onions into half rings, and green onions into small rings. Next, put peas of pepper on the bottom of the pan with a thick bottom, and lay onions, carrots, green onions, fish and potatoes in layers on them. After that, water is poured into the pan so that it covers all contents with 2 fingers, and you can put it on fire. As the water begins to boil, toss the bay leaf in the ear and cook it for 25 minutes. After that, add spices and cream to the pan, wait after boiling for another three minutes, without interfering, and the fish soup will be ready.
Ear with vodka
To make the zander ear transparent and light, you can add a little vodka to it. Such a dish will ultimately be very tasty and ideal for a light meal after a hearty feast with the use of alcoholic beverages. The ingredients for such an original soup will be exactly the same as for its classic recipe, only they will add another glass with 50 ml of vodka and 100 grams of celery root.
In this case, the first thing to do is to peel the vegetables, chop the celery, half the onion and half the carrot in large pieces and cook the broth for the fish soup with these vegetables, fins and the tail of the pike perch. Cooking time should be equal to half an hour. During this time we cut potatoes into cubes, thin carrot slices and onion cubes.
Then, after half an hour, according to the recipe for fish soup from pike perch, everything will need to be pulled out and discarded from the broth, and instead put potatoes, carrots and onions in a pan. As soon as the water boils, the soup needs to be salted, pepper and add chopped zander and bay leaf. After that, the soup is boiled for about 15 minutes, and only then a glass of vodka is added to it, with which it will be boiled for about 5-6 more minutes. At the end, spices are added to the ear and the dish will be ready.
Ear with egg
If you focus on recipes with photos of zander soup, then many will surely like the version of this fish soup with egg, which will add some zest to the dish. In this case, you will need all the same components as for the classic recipe, plus 2 chicken eggs.
And preparing the dish is simple. First of all, we collect two liters of water in a pot and put it on fire. While she is trying to boil, she can peel and chop the potatoes, carrots and onions. As the water boils, we throw potatoes with carrots and chopped pike perch there. After 10 minutes, onions can be added to the pan. After that, take the eggs, break them into a bowl and beat with a whisk. Next, it remains only to pour the obtained egg mixture into our ear, add salt, pepper and spices there, let the soup boil, and the dish will be ready. Before removing the pan from the heat in the ear, it remains to add only chopped parsley with dill.
Pikeperch head
If you have only one head of zander left without meat, then you should not worry, it can also make an excellent ear. The ingredients for such a dish are exactly the same as in the classic recipe, however, instead of usually a piece of fish, only its head goes there. By the way, exactly the same ear can be prepared from the head of any other fish.
First of all, we remove the eyes and gills from the fish’s head, and then we put it in the water for 40 minutes so that the blood leaves it, and when boiling the head less foam appears. After that, we collect 2 liters of water in the pan and put it on fire, so that immediately after boiling the water, put the head of the pike perch there. When the water boils, a foam will immediately appear on it, which will need to be collected with a spoon, and as soon as the foam ceases to appear, according to the recipe for pike perch, you can add peeled, but not cut half of the carrots and half of the onion to the pan. So the head is boiled for half an hour, so that the broth becomes as transparent as possible.
While the head with halves of vegetables is cooked, peel the potatoes and cut them into cubes, and cut the remaining halves of carrots and onions into strips and half rings, respectively. After half an hour, we take out the head and vegetables from the broth, and we simply throw out the boiled halves of onions and carrots, and transfer the head of the pike perch to a plate and carefully separate the edible meat. After that we put the broth on the fire, put the potatoes in there and wait until the water boils again to put bay leaf and chopped carrots with onions in the pan, as well as salt and pepper our fish soup. When the potatoes are cooked, it will remain in the ear to put the finished meat from the head of the pike perch, cook the ear for another 2 minutes, add parsley with dill there, and everything will be ready.
Bonfire
If you look at the photo in the recipes for zander soup, you can see that very often this dish is prepared not at home, but on the street - right on the fire. Actually, the preparation of such a fish soup is practically no different from its preparation according to the classic recipe at home on the stove. Only this time, she will not stand on the burner, but hang over the fire on a solid bar. And plus, if you cook fish soup in the fresh air and you have a couple of small fresh tomatoes with you, you can add them to your ear. The main thing is to peel them, chop finely and put in soup 15 minutes before the end of its preparation. Thus, they will make the ear brighter, and the taste of the soup will become much more saturated.
Mistress note
If you want your zander ear to always work out perfectly, there are some nuances to keep in mind when preparing it.
- During the preparation of the broth, half the onion should be added there, so the fish soup will become more flavorful.
- So that the soup does not stink so much with fish, it is better to cook the ear without covering the pan with a lid, over low heat.
- To make the taste of the soup even better, a few minutes before the end of its preparation, you can add butter to your ear.
- You can’t cook zander for more than 25 minutes, otherwise its meat will lose all taste and become too hard.
- In no case should you add water during the preparation of fish soup, otherwise the taste of the soup will be completely spoiled.
- It is possible to determine that pike perch meat is completely cooked by eye - if it has begun to lag behind the bones, then it is already ready for use.