Pike ear is a traditional dish of Russian cuisine, which is still very loved by many today. The simplest, but very aromatic and delicious fish soup is prepared both on fishing and in ordinary home cooking. But both there and there you need to know certain rules for the preparation of this dish so that it turns out to be really tasty.

Preparing to cook pike fish soup

Real fishermen believe that there should be nothing in the ear except fish, onions and carrots. It would seem - what could be easier? However, the recipe for pike fish soup has many secrets, the main ones concerning the choice of fish, spices and cooking utensils.

How to choose and prepare fish

For a delicious real fish soup, you should take a fresh pike, ideally even a living one - it is from such a fish that they cook fish soup, and it turns out to be the most delicious. However, at home, just fresh fish is enough. Frozen is not worth taking - the ear will not work either delicious or rich. Also give preference to small fish, they produce a more rich broth. A large fish can give the broth a taste of mud.

Also, for a greater richness and bright taste, you can add to the broth and other small fish, for example, perch or ruff.

So, choosing a fish:

  • Gut it thoroughly, clean it, be sure to remove the gills and fins.
  • Then rinse the carcass under running water and cut the fish into small pieces.
  • If you are preparing an ear using a fish head, then remove its eyes as well.

The choice of utensils for cooking

 

The ideal dish for cooking fish soup from any fish is a large clay pot. However, in modern conditions it is not easy to find one and use it in an ordinary kitchen, so a cast-iron cauldron will be a good alternative to the pot.You can also take any pan, the main thing is that it is made of metal that does not oxidize. For example, an ordinary enameled one is suitable.

What spices are suitable for fish soup?

It is believed that if the fish is fresh, then it does not need any spices other than salt. Especially if it is freshly caught - seasonings can drown out the delicate sweet taste of the decoction. However, if you want to enrich the taste of your fish soup, you can add black pepper and bay leaf to it. As for salt, it is better to pour it into the soup at the very beginning of cooking.

This is the maximum seasoning you can put in your ear. A larger amount will simply be inappropriate and spoil the taste of the fish.

The classic recipe for pike fish soup

For a classic pike ear you will need:

  • pike weighing about a kilogram;
  • 2 heads of onions;
  • potatoes - 4 pieces;
  • 1 carrot;
  • a few peas of pepper;
  • 4 leaves of lavrushka;
  • salt;
  • a bunch of any greenery.

The cooking algorithm is quite simple:

  1. Pour cold water into the pan and put in pieces of fish, put on fire. Do not close the lid so that the broth is clear and the unpleasant fish smell disappears.
  2. When the contents of the pan begin to boil, reduce the heat and put salt and spices in the water. Cook the soup for about a quarter of an hour.
  3. Then remove the fish pieces, strain the broth through a sieve or gauze, remove all the bones and return the fish back to the pan. Continue cooking over low heat.
  4. Send the potato slices to the soup. Peel the carrots and put them whole or cut into pieces. After about ten minutes, put the coarsely chopped onions in the soup and let the soup cook for another 7 minutes.

Then turn off the heat and let the ear brew for another half hour. Add greens to each plate, which was previously finely chopped.

Slow cooker soup

A slow cooker is perfect for cooking fish soup, as it can maintain a constant low temperature, ideal for the soup to brew and sweat.

To diversify the taste of fish soup, you can move away from the classic recipe and add celery root for taste and tomato for color in the soup.

For pike fish soup in a slow cooker you will need:

  • kilogram of pike;
  • a tomato;
  • celery root;
  • 2 potatoes;
  • one carrot and one onion;
  • half a teaspoon of salt, sugar;
  • lavrushka.

If all the ingredients are ready, then you can proceed:

  1. The carcass of the fish, peeled and cut into pieces, together with the head, lay in the bowl of the multicooker.
  2. Peel and cut all vegetables. Pour them over pieces of fish. Put salt, sugar and lavrushka.
  3. Turn on the device in the “Soup” mode for an hour. After 40 minutes from the start of the program, put in a bowl the tomato and celery, cut into pieces.

When the program finishes cooking, leave the soup heated for another 10 minutes and serve the ear with fresh herbs.

A puffy ear from the head and tail of a pike

If you cook some other dish from a pike, for example, a pie, then you will have “trimmings”. Do not rush to throw them away, because you will get a great ear from the head of the pike and from its tail! In addition, the soup can be supplemented with one or two types of fish. Such a triple ear will be especially tasty. However, if you do not fundamentally have meat in the soup, and you need only a good fat, then one head with a tail will cope with the task. Use the rest of the ingredients as in the regular ear.

  • If you cook soup exclusively from heads and tails, then put them in water, as in a traditional recipe.
  • If you add another fish, then put the heads and tails in a gauze bag, tie it and lower it in a saucepan.

When the time comes to get the fish and strain the broth, just throw the bag away. Your rich ear from the head and tail of the pike is ready.

With the addition of millet

This is another variation of the classic recipe. However, many believe that millet makes the taste of fish soup poorer. But if you want to make the soup more satisfying, then adding cereal will help you with this.

Take:

  • 500 grams of pike;
  • 1 onion and carrot each;
  • 3 potatoes;
  • bay leaf, salt, pepper;
  • 100 grams of millet;
  • 50 grams of vodka.

And the process itself is slightly different from the classical method of preparation:

  1. Put in a pan pieces of pike, parsley, carrots, cut into 4 parts, and onions, divided in half. Do not peel the bulb until the end - the skin will give the broth a golden color.
  2. Pour fish with vegetables in 3 liters of cold water. Boil the broth over low heat.
  3. At this time, rinse the millet and fill it with water.
  4. In the process of cooking, remove foam from the broth if it appears. After boiling, cook it for 10 - 15 minutes. Then take out the pike and vegetables, and strain the broth. Pour the liquid back into the pan, put the chopped potatoes, carrots, pieces of pike, salt and pepper.
  5. When the broth boils again, add millet to it and cook for 15 minutes.

At the end, pour a glass of vodka into your ear, cover the soup with a lid and let the ear and millet stand for 10 minutes.

Ear "royally"

This name is soup made at the same time from chicken and several varieties of fish. The traditional recipe uses rooster meat, but finding it now is not so easy, so you can use chicken for cooking. Better to take a poultry, but the usual one will do. You must also purchase two or three varieties of fish. In the traditional recipe, this is sturgeon and sterlet, but given their cost, you can replace this fish with pike and pike perch.

So, prepare:

  • 1.5 kg of rooster or chicken meat;
  • 1 kg of pike and pike perch;
  • 2 onion heads;
  • bow arrows;
  • 5 garlic cloves;
  • 2 carrots;
  • 50 ml of vodka;
  • a few peas of pepper, salt.

We begin to prepare our unusual soup:

  1. To begin with, put the whole chicken in cold water and put on a strong fire. Let the water boil and after 5 minutes of active boiling, drain the broth. Transfer the chicken to clean water and cook over medium heat for a couple of hours. If you do not have poultry, then reduce the time, as ordinary chicken will cook faster.
  2. At this time, you need to prepare fish carcasses - clean, rinse, remove the fins, tail and head, but do not throw them out. Chop the carcass into large pieces. When the chicken or rooster boils, you need to remove the meat from the pan and put in it fins, gills and tail - they will give the most delicious fat.
  3. After 30 minutes, remove the fish "spare parts", put pieces of pike in the broth and cook for 20 minutes. Then take them out.
  4. Then put the pike perch in a broth, coarsely chopped vegetables, a bunch of onions, pepper and cook for another 15 minutes. At the end, return the pike to the soup, put the salt and do not forget to remove the greens.
  5. Pour vodka into the soup, close the lid and let stand for 15 minutes without fire.

Bonfire recipe

Perhaps this is the easiest recipe, but at the same time the most delicious.

  1. For a fish soup you need to take fish (preferably freshly caught), gut it and rinse it. From the head, cut the gills, cut the carcass into pieces.
  2. Pour water into a pot, which is already installed above the fire, and throw peeled potatoes, onions and carrots into it - all cut into large pieces. But onions can be put whole.
  3. When the water boils, salt it at the rate of a tablespoon of 5 liters of water.
  4. Let the vegetables boil for about 5 minutes, after which you can put fish in the pot. Make sure that the water does not boil too much, and cook the ear for 40 to 50 minutes.
  5. 10 minutes before cooking, put peppercorns and bay leaves in the soup, and then pour in a glass of vodka.
  6. 5 minutes before the end of cooking, the turn of the main secret comes, which will allow you to cook your ear “with smoke”. In a pot you need to dip a little fire from a fire. The soup will have a light and pleasant aftertaste, very suitable for the ear.

Despite the fact that pike is a capricious fish with tough meat and a pronounced fish smell, with a certain dexterity it produces very tasty and fragrant dishes. And an ear made from pike will surely please you with a rich broth with dense fragrant pieces of white fish.

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