Pikeperch Aspic with Gelatine
Aspic is the dish for which the head and backbone of a pikeperch are not thrown away. They are what makes the broth: the head, fins and backbone hold collagen, which passes into the water during long simmering and gives it body. The fillet here is responsible for taste and looks; the frame of the fish is responsible for the base.
But unlike catfish or a pike head, a pikeperch does not have enough collagen for the broth to set on its own. Hence the gelatine in the recipe — 30 grams to one and a half litres. This is not a shortcut for the lazy but a necessity for this particular fish: pikeperch is lean and has little setting power of its own.
The main requirement for aspic is clarity. A cloudy aspic with the right taste still looks like a failure, and the colour cannot be fixed once it has set. Clarity rests on three things: a gentle simmer with no rolling boil, skimming the foam at the start, and straining twice — before the gelatine and after it.
The fillet of the same pikeperch can be baked instead of boiled — Pike-Perch in the Oven with Carrot, Onion and a Cheese Crust — or poached in a vegetable stock, as in Polish-Style Pikeperch with Egg Sauce. The head and backbone still go into the broth either way.
Caloric content: 95kcal
Clean the fish
Rinse the pikeperch thoroughly and scale it. Cut off the spiny dorsal fin with scissors — the spines break off in your skin and prick painfully.
Take off the fillet
Cut off the head and carefully pull out the backbone, separating the two fillets. Nothing is thrown away: the head and backbone are the base of the aspic.
Simmer the broth for an hour
Simmer the head and backbone in 1.5 l of water with the whole onion and the carrot. Bring to the boil, salt, add the spices and cook for an hour over low heat, skimming the foam regularly.
Add the gelatine
Soak the gelatine in a cup of cold boiled water and let it swell. Stir it into the strained broth, strain once more, adjust the salt and cool to room temperature.
Cook the fillet separately
Cook the fillet through with salt and white pepper — in a separate pan, not in the broth. Or poach it for an hour in the oven at 100 °C: the flesh comes out firmer.
Pour the first layer
Pour a thin layer of the gelatine broth into the serving dish and refrigerate until set. Without this layer the fish and the garnish float to the top.
Cut the fillet
Cool the cooked fillet and cut it into small even pieces. Do not cut it hot — it will fall apart into flakes.
Build the second layer
Arrange the fish on the set layer, along with shaped pieces of carrot from the broth, herbs and halved quail eggs. Pour over the remaining broth and return to the cold.
Garnish and serve
Once set, add the garnish: red caviar on the quail eggs, pepper, peas, parsley and lemon around them. Serve cold, straight from the dish.
Notes
- The fillet cooks separately from the broth. This is the main difference from a fish soup. Drop the fillet into the same pot and it releases protein and haze into the broth — and the clarity is gone.
- Instead of boiling, the fillet can be poached. An hour in the oven at 100 °C gives firmer flesh that cuts into neat cubes and does not fall apart in the aspic.
- Gelatine is soaked in cold water, not hot. In hot water it seizes into lumps that never dissolve in the broth and end up on the plate.
- The layers are poured in two stages. First a thin layer of broth on the bottom and into the fridge — otherwise the fish and the garnish float up and gather at the surface instead of lying in an even pattern.
- The broth is salted twice, and carefully. Once while the frame simmers, again with the gelatine. Set aspic tastes less salty than the liquid did, and that is what you allow for.
What else works instead of pikeperch
The same order works with pike and large perch — firm white flesh that does not fall apart when cubed. Carp and bream are worse for aspic: the first has flesh that is too soft, the second too many fine bones, every one of them visible in clear jelly. Catfish makes the richest aspic of all, and needs less gelatine — there is far more cartilage in a catfish head.
Recipe and photos — kolizhanka.net.ua
