Salmon head and chayote tops soup

Unlike my fried chicken and cabbage fried rice, this soup dish was something I planned and prepared for. Well, more like a five-minute planning, actually. I saw the salmon heads in the supermarket and couldn’t resist the thought of having fish head soup for dinner. Then, there were the chayote tops that just looked so enticingly fresh. The picture inside my head of a simple soup spiced with lots of ginger was just too irresistible. So, I gave in…

From experience, there are far too many scales still attached to the fish head when I buy them. I use a small serrated knife to scrape off the scales. It’s just not fun eating fish heads if one has to pick the scales after they’re cooked. Make sure, too, that the gills have been removed before you place the fish head in the cooking pot.

Cooking fish head soup is very simple, really. You need a thoroughly cleaned fish head about 600 grams in weight (salmon, maya-maya, talakitok, lapu-lapu). You need vegetables (you can substitute malunggay leaves or pechay for the chayote tops), spices (garlic, onion or shallots and lots of ginger for that extra bite), a little cooking oil, patis, pepper and water.

As a guideline (works for me), use half a head of garlic, an onion or two shallots and a thumb-sized piece of ginger for every 500 grams of fish head. Crush the garlic, thinly slice the onion or shallots and the ginger then saute them all together in about 2 tablespoonfuls of hot oil. Pour in about 8 cups of water. Add the fish head and trimmed chayote tops (or whatever greens you’re using), season with patis and some pepper and bring to a boil. Lower the heat, cover and simmer for another 10-12 minutes and it’s done. Simple, eh?

The trick to cooking a good fish head soup is to allow the fish to flavor the broth. That means you have to cook the fish in the water long enough to allow it to do that. At the same time, however, you don’t want to overcook the fish because you really don’t want to pick pieces of fish meat from the broth. You want to be able to scoop out the meat from the cheeks in one piece and peel off the skin especially around the mouth.

I must admit that the first time I made fish head soup, I undercooked the fish. The second time, I overcooked it to death. The third time… ah, it was perfect. To be on the safe side, allow 10 minutes of simmering time for every half kilo of fish. That way, you get a wonderfully flavored broth and a fish head cooked just right.

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