A Christmas special: Try the fish soup from Café Savoy
Café Savoy
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The soup is a primer! And Christmas Eve should be no different. Moreover, the fish one is logically paired with fried carp - the remaining skeletons and heads (without eyes and gills!) are just briefly boiled with vegetables and offer the basis for the cook's next art. Or would you prefer a creamy trout soup? Enjoy Christmas as they do at Café Savoy!
For a litre of soup (4 servings):
- 120 g carrots
- 50 g parsley (root)
- 50 g celery
- 1 medium onion
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 300 g fish skeletons (from carp or trout)
- litre of water, cold
- a pinch of allspice
- a pinch of nutmeg
- pinch of fennel
- salt to taste
- 1 medium-sized unwaxed lemon
- 200 ml cream
- 50 g cold butter
- clarified butter (for browning)
To finish:
- 200 g cooked root vegetables
- 250 g salmon gravlax or smoked fish (salmon, carp or trout)
- caviar (from salmon)
- vanilla oil
- chive oil
- a few sprigs of fresh dill
Procedure:
- Clean the root vegetables and cut them into smaller cubes. Peel the onion and divide it into small pieces. Just peel the garlic.
- Preheat the oven to 180 to 200 °C, line a baking tray with baking paper and put the skeletons to bake. Baking will take about 15 minutes and will ensure a more flavourful but above all clear broth. The bones are commonly steamed for the same reason.
- In the meantime, fry the vegetables in a frying pan with clarified butter, or roast them briefly in the oven with the skeletons until golden!
- Place the roasted skeletons, vegetables, onion and garlic in a pot, cover with cold water and add all the spices at once. Bring to the boil. Don't forget the extra pinch of salt.
Note: If you are used to scooping the foam from the broth, add the spices afterwards. - Before the water starts to boil, wash the lemon with hot water, roast it whole like a vegetable (in a pan or in the oven) and dip it into the pot with the other ingredients.
- Bring the broth to the boil briefly, then reduce the heat and simmer for up to an hour without the liquid bubbling.
- Carefully strain the soup through a cheesecloth to catch the proteins sitting at the bottom of the pot. Set the cooked vegetables aside and allow to cool.
- Pour in the cream and bring to the boil. Finally, whisk in the butter and season with salt if necessary.
Service:
- Serve a scoop of cooked root vegetables and pieces of smoked fish on each plate. Top with hot soup and garnish with caviar and fresh dill.
- Finish with a drizzle of chive and vanilla oil.
Could be useful:
More types of fish means more flavour. That's why chefs sometimes order a mix of fish skeletons, which you can get at fishmongers' shops, as well as carp heads. The intensity of the fish broth can be intensified by reduction, and a more interesting flavour will be provided by freshly smoked fish - while the skeletons flavour the soup, the fillets are used as an add-on. For flavouring, try fish garum.
You can also season the fish soup with bay leaves, cloves or star anise. The Christmas season call for it!
Vegetables for serving the soup are cooked separately at Café Savoy - the carrots, celery and parsley have already given up most of their flavour. Some pros prepare the fish broth without any vegetables at all and add them to the plate. They don't want the pure fish flavour to go too sweet or sour.
The chefs marinate the salmon gravlax themselves, unlike caviar. If you include smoked trout, pair it with trout caviar.
You can easily make your own vanilla oil from leftover vanilla beans. Simply marinate them in sunflower oil heated to 40 °C - in 24 hours, and you will get a fragrant condiment in a jar.
