Fish soups are found in all cuisines of the world, and Russian cuisine also boasts a wide variety of recipes. We cook botvinya, yurma, kalya, and solyanka, but the most popular and favorite is the ukha.
It is correct to cook fish soup from freshly caught fish in a cauldron over a fire, but believe me, fish soup prepared at home is not inferior to the real thing in either taste or beneficial qualities, and the proof of this is the aromatic fish soup made from sterlet. Shall we cook?
Sterlet soup - general principles of preparation
Sterlet is a fish of the sturgeon family, one of its smallest representatives. The weight of one does not exceed a kilogram, although, for sure, there are also exceptional specimens.
Cutting such a fish is quite difficult; you will need gloves and special scissors, since the sterlet has sharp bone plates on the sides. In addition, sterlet is covered with mucus that is unpleasant to the touch, but it is not difficult to remove - just pour boiling water over the fish before cutting, then thoroughly rub the carcass with your hands while wearing gloves, and rinse. Thanks to this simple procedure, ideally the bone plates will be removed along with the mucus. Next, remove the insides, not forgetting to remove the elm, cut off the head, tail, and remove the gills using scissors. But the fish does not have scales as such, so you don’t have to worry about this stage. Wash the cut sterlet and cut into large pieces.
When the cutting of the main ingredient is completed, you can safely begin preparing sterlet fish soup. The main principle is to slowly simmer the fish in water, as a result of which literally in 15-20 minutes the existing “scales” of the sterlet will completely dissolve, which, by the way, will add a special taste and richness to the broth. After boiling and the first skimming, you can put celery and parsley roots into the broth, as well as a thoroughly washed whole young onion directly with the husk. After half an hour, carefully remove the fish with a slotted spoon, and strain the broth, getting rid of the roots. As a result of this simmering, a rich fish broth with a pronounced aroma is obtained.
There is another way to prepare a delicious sterlet broth: first, simmer the illicit part of the fish for 30 minutes with the same roots and onions: tail, head, skeleton, then strain the broth, add the prepared sterlet fillet and cook for another ten minutes.
And then there is room for imagination; you can add vegetables, cereals, fried vegetables, spices, herbs to the finished broth
From fish head with millet
We suggest preparing a rich first course based on the fish soup that the Cossacks of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin himself enjoyed. The Cossacks had a lot of millet and sturgeon fish at their disposal. We will prepare fish soup from the head of sterlet with millet.
For 2 liters of water take:
- sterlet head and tail – 300 g;
- millet – 100 g;
- carrots – 70 g;
- potatoes – 100 g;
- onion – 30 g;
- allspice peas – 5 pcs.;
- dill (dried) – tbsp. l.;
- greens (fresh) - to taste;
- butter – 50 g;
- salt - to taste.
To cook sterlet soup with millet, you need to follow these steps:
- Place the fish in cold water and, adding spices, including pepper and dried dill, cook the broth. When ready, strain.
- Put it back on the stove. Place the millet, thoroughly rinsed until clear water, into the pan. Cook the millet in splendid isolation for at least 30 minutes. At the same time, do not forget about the foam.
- The next ingredients to add are onions and carrots. They can be fried in oil.
- After boiling the vegetables in the broth for 10 minutes, add the potato cubes there.
- After adding the potatoes, you can add whole pieces of fish to the fish soup. They cook quickly.
- 5 minutes before turning off, add chopped herbs to the soup.
- After turning off the soup, season it with butter.
Let the fish soup brew, after which we enjoy the excellent taste and rich aroma.
How to cook with pearl barley
The process of preparing fish soup with barley is basically no different from the recipe describing the method of cooking with millet, with the only exception... Barley does not need to be boiled for a long time separately from other ingredients.
Ukha is a traditional Russian dish and cannot be compared with ordinary fish soup. The dish is distinguished by a completely transparent broth and a minimal set of ingredients. Sterlet soup at home is a royal dish for any occasion. You will learn how to prepare it from this article.
The calorie content of sterlet fish soup is approximately 30 Kcal per 100 g of broth
Ingredients
Sterlet 500 grams Chicken 1 carcass Potatoes 3 pieces Carrots 1 piece(s) Onion 1 head Parsley (root) 1 piece(s) Bay leaf 2 leaves Salt 40 milliliters Salt 6 piece(s)
- Number of servings: 1
- Cooking time: 2 minutes
Festive ear
Chicken meat, as well as champagne or vodka, are often added to the royal fish soup. We will now consider one of these unusually tasty recipes.
Ingredients
- Chicken and sterlet – 1 kg each;
- Perch – 400 gr.;
- Egg white – 2 pcs.;
- Celery and parsley roots - 100 g each;
- Lemon – ½ part;
- Dill greens;
- Salt - to taste;
- Onion – 100 gr.;
- Ground black pepper - to taste;
- Champagne – 300 gr.
Cooking method
- Choose a medium-sized chicken, clean it and wash it in clean water.
- Fill the cleaned chicken carcass with cold water and place the pan with the chicken on high heat.
- Bring the poultry meat to a boil and reduce the flame.
- Cook the chicken over low heat until done.
- As soon as the chicken meat is cooked, the chicken can be removed from the broth.
- We wash the roots of parsley and celery under running water and clean them.
- We take up the perches and begin to clean and wash them.
- Pour the green roots into the chicken broth and place the pan with the aromatic contents on low heat for further cooking.
- When we see that the roots are almost ready, about 15 minutes before they are finally cooked, we need to add the peeled perch to the broth.
- Add some salt to the broth to taste and leave the fish in the pan for 15 minutes to cook.
- After a quarter of an hour, we take the fish out of the broth and set it aside for a while.
- Beat the egg whites, add them to the hot chicken broth and boil. Thanks to the proteins, the broth will change its color and become lighter.
- After the whites boil, we carefully remove them from the pan with a slotted spoon.
- Let's start preparing the sterlet. To do this, we clean it of scales, thoroughly gut it, cut it into portions, wash it, dry it and place it in a fragrant broth boiling on the stove.
- We wait until the pieces of sterlet begin to rise to the surface of the boiling broth, and note the time on the clock.
- The fish should boil over low heat for 15 minutes.
- When the sterlet is cooked, it will become soft and pliable, then the cartilage can be easily removed from it. Thanks to this culinary stage, royal soup has such a delicate, delicate taste.
- Take 300 gr. champagne, pour it into a clean pan and start boiling.
- While the champagne reaches a bubbling state, we chop the dill.
- Take a small lemon and pour boiling water over it.
- We peel the sour fruit and cut it into beautiful, appetizing slices.
- Finally, pour chopped dill into the cooked fish soup, and pour boiled champagne over it all.
- The soup is ready. If desired, we can add lemon slices to it, or simply serve them separately.
You can eat this “fish happiness” day and night. The aromatic smell and unforgettable taste of fish soup simply “do not let go” of its captivity. Ear from the beloved sterlet –
This is a dish that can be cooked not only at home on the stove, but also over campfires while camping. With the smell of smoke, in the lap of pure nature, and with a glass of exquisite wine, a fish dish will be enjoyed by your sweet soul.
Ukha is a traditional Russian dish and cannot be compared with ordinary fish soup. The dish is distinguished by a completely transparent broth and a minimal set of ingredients. Sterlet soup at home is a royal dish for any occasion. You will learn how to prepare it from this article.
The calorie content of sterlet fish soup is approximately 30 Kcal per 100 g of broth
Ingredients
Sterlet 500 grams Chicken 1 carcass Potatoes 3 pieces Carrots 1 piece(s) Onion 1 head Parsley (root) 1 piece(s) Bay leaf 2 leaves Salt 40 milliliters Salt 6 piece(s)
- Number of servings: 1
- Cooking time: 2 minutes
Homemade sterlet soup recipe
Servings: 5-6.
Time: 40-60 minutes.
Calorie content per 100 grams: 45 kcal.
Ingredients:
Cooking process with photos:
Before cooking sterlet soup, thoroughly wash the carcass, gut it, and cut off the tails and heads. We remove the gills and sucker mouth from the sterlet's head. Place the fish in a saucepan, fill with cold water, and heat to a boil. Drain the water and wash the fish. Fill with two liters of cold water, add bay leaves, a whole unpeeled onion, carrots, and spices. It will take no more than half an hour to cook the broth.
Strain the resulting broth and heat it again. Meanwhile, peel and chop the vegetables and wash the rice several times. You can cook frying vegetables in any vegetable oil.
Place rice in boiling fish soup. When the cereal is half ready, add the potatoes. After the root vegetables are cooked, flavor the dish with fried vegetables.
Add simple sterlet soup with chopped herbs, fish heads and set aside. Serve with a slice of lemon and chopped parsley.
Bon appetit everyone!
An amazing first course can be made even tastier if:
Sterlet is a commercial river fish from the sturgeon family. Found in almost all rivers of our country. This is a unique fish because it contains no carbohydrates. Cooked dishes are rich in protein and amino acids, which the human body replenishes from food. Including sterlet in your diet will help improve metabolism, lower cholesterol and protect against cardiovascular diseases. Omega-3 content helps cope with depression by influencing the level of the happiness hormone in a person’s blood.
notes from the forest
At all times and eras, sterlet in our country was considered a luxury item and was one of the most expensive fish.In classical Russian literature, dishes made from large sterlet and especially sterlet ear are mentioned many times as a sign of wealth and especially rich table, and also as an indispensable attribute of wide revelry. However, in those days, sterlet was well known, loved and knew how to cook. It was sold widely in Moscow and in quite large quantities, Despite its relative high cost, it was quite affordable for a mid-range table.
Today, sterlet is extremely rare in stores, its pale, frozen appearance and especially its price tag usually do not meet with understanding among the population.You can taste sterlet dishes only in a few restaurants, but even there it is usually cooked incorrectly and tasteless.
Nevertheless, oddly enough, the issue of proper preparation of sterlet is quite relevant today, especially for fishermen near Moscow.This fish ends up in amateur catches in the Moscow region in two ways.
Firstly, from nature. In the Moscow region, wild sterlet was originally found in the Volga, Oka and Klyazma, albeit in small quantities, which decreased even more after the construction of the Volga cascade dams. Accordingly, it was caught extremely rarely back then.However, in the last 30-40 years, many larvae and fry of sterlet and other sturgeon have been released into these rivers and other bodies of water, in some years this number amounted to hundreds of thousands and millions. As a result, in the middle reaches of the Oka we today have a stable population of sterlet, which does not migrate to the sea, but spends all its time in the river and reproduces here. With knowledge of the places and the appropriate skills, it is now possible to catch sterlet purposefully in the Oka Well, as an accidental bycatch, it is not at all uncommon.
Here we must make a small digression and say that sterlet is in the Red Book of the Moscow Region and, strictly speaking, it is impossible to catch it. On the other hand, according to various independent estimates, the population of this fish is quite stable and amateur fishing can no longer harm it, especially taking into account the regular mass release of juveniles by the Aleksinsky sturgeon farm and other fish hatcheries. And fishermen are catching them with all their might. Moreover, we don’t have a clear law on fishing in our country now, there are only numerous instructions and orders from various departments, sometimes contradicting each other. In general, the question of whether to release an accidentally caught sterlet or leave it for his own table, let everyone decide for himself alone with his conscience. Except Moreover, there is a second way - this fish can be caught quite legally in numerous fish farms and other cultural fish farms.In addition to sterlet, bester (a hybrid of beluga and sterlet) and Lena sturgeon are also found here. However, from a culinary point of view we will not distinguish between them today.
So, what to do with a caught sterlet? Undoubtedly, the most delicious dish made from this fish is considered to be fish soup. It can be prepared normally only from live, or at least fresh fish. First, the bugs are removed from it, the gills, vizig and entrails, always leaving milk and fatty stripes, are cut into portioned pieces. A kilogram of fish is enough per ear for 5-6 people. According to Moscow traditions, Sterlet fish soup is not cooked from one sterlet, but a double one - in a broth made from small fish, for which it is permissible to use only ruffs, gudgeons and small perches.The first batch of fish is boiled with salt, bay leaf, black and allspice and onion for about 30-40 minutes, after which the broth is lightened with egg white and filtered.Then add pieces of sterlet, which cooks very quickly - 15- 20 minutes. Cook, of course, without a lid and over very low heat. After the end of cooking, when the fire under the pan has already been turned off, you can pour half a glass of dry white wine into the fish soup if desired. or dry champagne. This is how you get the famous pre-revolutionary symbol of revelry and merchant prowess “sterlet in champagne.”
Serving sterlet fish soup should be done this way: first, the floating fat is evenly divided onto each plate, then the soup itself is poured, and only then the portions of fish are laid out. This is done so as not to stir up the clear broth. Put a slice of lemon on each plate, and sprinkle finely chopped parsley and dill on top. That's all. Bon appetit.
Simple recipe
You can make regular fish soup from sterlet, without losing any of its attractive taste and beneficial properties.
So, what is needed for such a dish:
| WHAT YOU NEED | NUMBER OF PRODUCTS REQUIRED |
| Fresh sterlet | 1 kg |
| Celery root | 20 gr |
| Parsley dill | Taste |
| Parsley root | 20 gr |
| Bulb | 1 PC |
| Allspice | A few peas |
| Pepper, salt | Taste |
| Water | 1.5 l |
The approximate cooking time for this dish is about 2 hours 30 minutes. Calorie content – 92 kcal per 100 g.
Step-by-step preparation of simple fish soup:
- As usual, you first need to start with the fish: rinse, peel, cut into small pieces;
- Place parsley and celery root in a blender, grind them until finely shredded;
- The available greens should be finely chopped;
- Peel the onion, but do not chop it;
- Place the fish in a saucepan with water, add chopped celery root and parsley, add peppercorns, herbs and add a whole onion;
- Place the pan on the fire, cook the fish soup over medium heat, after boiling, reduce the heat as much as possible, remove the resulting foam, add salt and pepper and cook for another 1 hour;
- After preparing the fish soup, keep it covered for 15 minutes, then pour it into plates and garnish with small pieces of lemon.
Useful tips
There are a couple of very important tips for removing hard bone growths from the surface of a sterlet carcass:
- the first step is to rip open the abdomen and remove the entrails, then separate the head;
- A sterlet carcass ready for cooking should be lightly doused with boiling water, and then placed in a deep bowl with hot water for a while so that the water completely covers it. After these steps, all the bone growths of the sterlet will soften and can be easily removed with a knife.
Also, absolutely all the chefs in the world advise removing mucus from the surface of the carcass using ordinary salt (to do this, you need to grind the fish with it). By the way, court cooks in Rus' used this method of processing fish in the Middle Ages.
To easily remove the top fin, you can carefully make a cut along the entire ridge, and then use a fork or knife to easily remove it. However, if the fish is large enough, then it will be easier to first cut it into small pieces and then separate the fin from each of them. By the way, this fin is very harmful for consumption, because it contains harmful substances. Scientifically, it is called a vizig and rather resembles an ordinary ridge.
There are also several tips for preparing sterlet fish soup:
- If, while preparing a dish, you add a little dry wine (white or red, it’s not so important), then the fish soup will acquire a truly delicious and luxurious taste;
- It is recommended to serve the fish soup with fresh croutons and a glass of white wine;
- During cooking, along with sterlet, you can add another type of fish to the soup, for example, pike perch or perch;
- Sterlet goes well with tomato flavor, so you can safely season your fish soup with tomato sauce or add natural crushed tomatoes;
- And yet, experienced chefs advise adding as little spices and other seasonings to this dish as possible, because they can interrupt the unique taste of this delicious fish.
