fish soup

fish soup
Originally uploaded by kattebelletje.

It was cold yesterday, but I didn't mind. I was going to make this lovely soup, filled with all kinds of fish. I try to be true to my new year's resolutions, being, 1. eating more fish, 2. eating more vegetarian dishes, and 3. eating organic meat. It can be hard, especially since organic meat is so much more expensive, but I try not to go for cheap chicken or other cheap lousy meat. Actually, it doesn't really matter what you all put in this fish soup, as long as the base is the cooking juices of 2 kilos of mussels. First, clean the mussels (leave the suspicious ones - the ones that don't close as you clean them - out), and fry some onion slices in a saute pan with olive oil. Add your mussels and some white wine and water, and wait until the mussels are just open. Then drain them in a sieve, saving the juices. You have to strain the juices later through a sieve with small holes and be careful to leave the small grits behind so they won't ruin the end result. Wait for the mussels to cool slightly before taking the meat out - you will end up with a little less than 400 grams of mussel meat. Then, clean your pan and add some new olive oil. Put in one stick of celery, chopped, one carrot, chopped, one onion and 3 cloves of garlic, fry them slowly; then add a tin of peeled plum tomatoes and chop them up. Add the strained mussel juices and extra water, let simmer. You can add some chili flakes for extra flavour, some pepper and salt, but be careful with the salt though, as the mussel juices are quite salty by themselves. Add a bay leaf, too. As you are almost ready to eat, add chunks of white fish, peeled (precooked) shrimp and the mussels. You can add all kinds of fish to your liking, but serve it as soon as the fish is tender (no more than 10 minutes). As you can see in the picture, I added some bigger shrimp with their shells on, but I don't recommend it, since you have to get them out of the soup one by one, and then fiddle around with the shells, which will frustrate you greatly because it makes you stop eating. Have a slice of nice bread with this soup with some garlic mayonaise or rouille on top. This is the nicest meal I have cooked in a long time, and I will definitely make this again!