Fish stock
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 1 hour
Serves:
- Times
- Description
- Image
- Ingredients
- Method
- Notes
- Nutrition
- Prep time: 5 minutes
- Cook time: 1 hour
- Total time: 1 hour 5 minutes
Quick and simple fish stock, unlike most other stocks, takes only about an hour to cook. Once you try it once you'll never think about substituting stock with water when cooking again, since most important of all you can refrigerate it for a week, and freeze for up to 6 months.
Ingredients
- 1 kg fish bones
- 2 onions
- 2 carrots
- 5 stalks parsley
- 200 gr celery root
- 1 small handfull pepper corns
- 3 cloves
- 2 bay leaves
Method
- 1)
Cut your onions in half with the skin left on and give them a quick sear on a hot dry pan. This concentrates the flavour of the onions and gives the stock more depth. I prefer leaving the skin on (you don’t have to) as it gives the stock a darker color.
- 2)
Now take all of your ingredients and put them in a large stock pot (you can put your herbs and spices in a piece of cloth and wrap it around the old traditional way, also known as bouquet garni.)
don’t forget to rinse the fish bones well and take the gills out discarding all the blood left behind that would make your stock taste bitter.
- 3)
Fill the pot with cold water, always cook stock with cold water because starting with hot water will make your stock cloudy.
- 4)
Bring the pot to a boil on medium-high heat then reduce to low.
- 5)
Simmer the stock for about an hour skimming the fat rising to the surface with a ladle.
- 6)
Once your stock has been simmering for an hour (don’t overcook it thinking it will make the stock taste more intense, it works with meat, with fish it will just taste bitter), take it off the heat and pass through a fine sieve, discarding the bones and vegetables.
- 7)
Once cooled down to room temperature, store it in a fridge (up to a week) or in a freezer (up to 6 months).
Notes
A nice little tip if cooking small portions of food is to freeze your stock in ice cubes, that way you can have it easily accessible and don’t have to defrost large volumes as refreezing isn’t a good idea with stocks (or anything for that matter).
Also, don’t be tempted to add salt, you don’t need your stock salty just as you wouldn’t pre salt your water when adding to your dish.