fish heads. soup.

September 30, 2012 2:15 AM

help me make a soup using what's sitting around in my fridge and freezer

I would like to use the 4 bonito fish heads I have sitting in my freezer (the bodies were cooked up yesterday) along with the very large bag of vegetable scraps I've been gathering in my freezer to make some sort of fantastic broth that I then turn into a simple and tasty soup using other ingredients I have on hand.

For what it's worth the vegetable scraps I have in the bag in the freezer are mostly onion, onion skin, garlic skin, potatoes, zucchini, eggplant, tomatoes, and bell peppers.

Other ingredients in my fridge/pantry are: onions, potatoes, eggplants, zucchinis, tomatoes, garlic, mild long green peppers, rice (medium grain, as well as basmati), egg pasta, other pasta shapes (nothing too small though, smallest is the rotini), flour, red lentils, chickpeas (frozen in the freezer), diced raw frozen chicken breast, frozen ground beef, two pounds of frozen sardines (not sure if I was supposed to freeze those but anyway...), low fat milk, tomato paste, red bell pepper paste, pickled cucumbers and tomatoes, tuna canned in oil, soy sauce, vegetable oil.

spices on hand: salt, black pepper, red chili powder, tumeric, coriander powder, mustard seeds, cumin seeds, black pepper corns, cloves, some basil (actually I might've run out, but willing to go get some more), powdered ginger. I think that's about it.


Please advise me cooks of askme!

It can be time consuming, but I would rather not use a blender or hand blender.

if you'd like to suggest other recipes using the above ingredients, besides soup, they'd also be welcome! These ingredients are literally all we eat these days besides fruits, other veggies occasionally, and sometimes bread. We've eaten out maybe twice in last month.

Thank you :)

posted by saraindc to Food & Drink (6 answers total)

I'd probably make the bonito fish broth, sardines, onions and potatoes into an improvised New England chowder, and combine the vegetable scraps, chicken, chickpeas, onions and spices into an improvised curry.

A cold salad of tuna, basil, diced tomatoes and onions over toast might make for an interesting change as well. Good luck!
posted by doreur at 4:20 AM on September 30, 2012

Best answer: Broth: Potato skins don't taste good to me unless they were very well cleaned. I haven't used onion or garlic skins in broth, so you may want to test. I'd just simmer the veggies with water for an hour, and strain well. I'd do the fish heads separately, so I could combine to taste. If any of the veggies are in good shape, I'd save them to add to the soup as veg., not broth.

Soup is more interesting if you change it up. All your ingredients are combine-able(I'm not sure about eggplant), but use them in smaller groups. Bonito broth(heads & onion/garlic & skins), with any bits of fish from the heads, potatoes, tomatoes, turmeric, coriander, cumin would be good; I make fish/tomato/potato curry with good results. Serve over rice, or rice w/ some lentils.
posted by theora55 at 4:57 AM on September 30, 2012

Supercook has you input your ingredients and tells you what you can make with them.
posted by quiet coyote at 6:58 AM on September 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

I might suggest dicing the tomatoes, zucchini and bell peppers and mincing some garlic and cooking those in olive oil (or veg oil) until they're soft (add salt, pepper and a pinch of the chili powder). Then take out the veg and sauté the minced chicken (thawed) until lightly browned and return the veg. to the pot as the base for a minestrone, adding the rotini at the end.
posted by the sobsister at 8:40 AM on September 30, 2012

Response by poster: supercook only has one recipe using fish heads.... :( the fish heads are sitting sadly in the freezer awaiting their fate still....
posted by saraindc at 12:40 PM on September 30, 2012

Response by poster: so I ended up making a broth using both the veggie scraps and the fish heads- I loved the suggestion to keep it separate but damn I'm lazy and plus I was afraid that a broth that was just fish might overwhelm me with it's unadulterated fishiness.

I had some with egg noodles, and tonight I'll have the rest with chinese egg noodles, garlic, soy sauce, spinach, and mushrooms (yes I bought a couple extra ingredients last night)

thanks for the suggestions :)
posted by saraindc at 2:37 AM on October 3, 2012