psarosoupa - fish soup a la grece

Fish soup - greek style

A simple soup with all the flavour of the fish, enhanced only with carrot, celery and a little lemon juice.

Take a variety of fresh fish.    Any nice fleshy fish with no bones is my favourite. Today we have 2 fish called 'pontikia'. 

Scale the fish, take out the guts.  Sprinkle the clean fish with salt and lemon juice.  Leave the head, don't de-bone.  The whole fish is tastier than the fillet.

Peel and cut into large chunks a few potatoes and a carrot or two.  Chop some celery and an onion.  I also used a leek in this soup. 

Boil a pot of water and add the vegetables.  Cook till soft, around half and hour.  Remove them from the water with a slotted spoon and keep them warm in the oven.

Bring the water back to the boil and now add the fish.  If they don't fit into the pot whole then cut into 2 or three big pieces.

Add salt and some olive oil, about a small wine glass.

The fish need to cook for 10 to 15 minutes.  Lift them very carefully without the fish breaking up and add them to the dish of vegetables.  Pour over both a little fresh olive oil and lemon juice.

To the remaining soup add half a small wine glass of rice and more water if it has reduced too much.   Boil slowly for 20 minutes till the rice is soft.  Add the juice of one lemon.

And it is ready to eat.

Ladle the soup into a plate and put in a piece or two of carrot and potato.  Now take the head and the backbone off the fish and serve chunks either in the soup or on a separate plate.  Watch out for bones.

We usually eat the soup with a little fish, potato and carrot.  Then we finish off with more potato and fish with a little mayonnaise.

Kali Orexi