Clear pike fish soup with an egg-white raft
Pike gives a strong but cloudy broth: the fish holds a lot of protein, which sets in fine flakes as it cooks and hangs suspended in the water. That is why classic pike fish soup is made with a raft — clarification with beaten egg white.
It works simply. The egg white, poured into a warm broth, sets little by little and gathers all the suspended matter onto itself, then floats up as a cap that is lifted off together with the muslin. After that the broth turns clear and golden — exactly the way fish soup is brought to the table with dark bread.
The whole thing takes about three hours, and almost all of that is waiting. If you do not need it clear, the same fish is easier to cook in a cauldron over a fire: cloudiness does not matter there, and everything is ready in forty minutes.
Over a fire the same soup is made quickly and without a raft in fish soup in a cauldron over a campfire, and carp head fish soup is built on carp heads.
Caloric content: 70kcal
Gut the pike
Put it on to cook
Cut the parsley root
Cut the onion
Skim the scum
Simmer with the vegetables for an hour
Take the fish out
Strain it and let it cool
Beat the egg whites
Let the whites down with broth
Clarify the broth
Strain it through muslin
Prepare the herbs
Put the bowl together
Notes
- The gills must come out. They are the main source of bitterness and cloudiness; no raft will put that right.
- Skim the scum from start to finish. Whatever is not taken off in the first minutes will spread through the broth, and the egg white will have twice as much to gather.
- The broth must be cooled before the raft goes in. Poured into a hot broth, the white sets instantly into flakes and gathers nothing — the whole point of the technique is the slow setting.
- Keep the simmer as low as it will go. A rolling boil will break up the cap of egg white and the suspended matter will go back into the broth.
- Muslin in the colander is not a whim. A sieve holds back only the large flakes and lets the fine ones through; several layers of muslin hold back everything.
- Do not throw the parsley root away. It is shared out among the bowls — that is the traditional way of serving, and after an hour of simmering it tastes better than carrot.
- The butter goes into the bowl, not into the pot. In hot broth it would spread as a film, while in the bowl it gives each portion its own aroma.
Recipe and step-by-step photos — kolizhanka.net.ua.
