Fish Stock: Historical Food Fortnightly Challenge #2

For background on the Historical Food Fortnightly, click here.

The Challenge: Soups and Sauces June 15 - June 28
Soups, stews, sauces, gravies! Make a soup or a sauce from a historical recipe.

I had planned to make catsup (homemade tomato ketchup) for this challenge but in the final days of the fortnight, two deaths happened that made me set aside the challenge and offer support to the grieving.  I ended up making the catsup for challenge #3 (on July 4) but I wanted to do all the challenges.  Betsy said to make the challenges work for us, and this fortnight I found myself with the scheduled challenge completed early (Indian Pudding) and the time, inclination, and raw materials to go back and finish an entry for challenge #2.

I happened to have some fish heads and guts (here in Peru, when you buy fish, you select your fully intact fish from the ice and they clean it for you.  You pay for it based on the total fish weight, and get a bag of fillets and a bag of fish guts, head, scales, etc.)  I took them because my friend said I could make stock with them.  It wasn't appealing to me (even after looking up what to do).  But then I realized I could turn my fish heads and guts into a challenge entry!  And my husband also wanted it out of the freezer.  Win-win.

The Recipe: Fish Stock (Recipe 192), The Book of Household Management, Mrs. Isabella Beeton, [1861] (p. 362) The Date/Year and Region: Recipe is English, published serially in 24 monthly parts in The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine from 1859-1861 and bound in 1861 as a book in London.

How Did You Make It: I omitted the beef or veal as the recipe stated it could be omitted.  I am making this for the challenge and may or may not actually use it for something.  I pulled the fish head/guts out of the freezer, where I had stashed it when it came home (not being able to look it in the face, so to speak, at the time).  I went to the market to buy two onions, two carrots, and a lemon.  We had the spices at home already.  I put the fish parts out to thaw (after weighing them to figure out how much of the price was related to the guts vs. the fillets) and washed then cut up the carrots and onions.  I peeled the lemon and put the lemon rind in the pot along with the other ingredients.  I pulled out my sweet spices (I went with the spices we had on hand based on what Mrs. Beeton recommended here and was pleased that she noted dried herbs in the winter months were ok.  We are in the winter months here and dried is what we have.)  

Time to Complete: About 20 minutes of casual hands on work to chop and throw stuff in the pot and 2 1/2 hours to simmer (about 30 minutes to warm the water and then I left it for two hours).  About another 15 minutes to strain it at the end and clean up. (I poured the stock through a strainer and rescued the carrots.  The rest got tossed.) 

Total Cost: $3.40 USD The white fish (liza) is apparently part of the mullet family and is fished in Peruvian waters.  This cost 14.60 soles per kilo.  The weight of the fish guts was 39.86% of the total (you can choose to take or leave the fish guts but you pay for the fish as a whole).  So, the fish guts cost 5.91 soles (about $2.12 USD) or free, depending on your opinion.  I would typically regard them as garbage.  The onions, carrots, and lemon cost 3 soles (about $1.08 USD).  We bought the spices from someone moving away; I would guess the amount I used was maybe 50 centimos (about 20 cents USD). I added about 1/4 cup total of spices, with the bulk being mint because that is what we have the most of.  (I didn't actually measure, just dumped stuff in the pot.) I also used marjoram, savory, and some other green leaf that wasn't labeled but we had in a spice bag. Mrs. Beeton says this will cost 3d per quart, and I assume this makes at least 1 quart (you start with 2 quarts of water).  [Mine did make about 1 quart.]  I don't know the British money, though, so I'm not sure how much this was or what the modern equivalent would be.  If someone knows about British money, enlighten me.  I tried to look it up but got lost.

How Successful Was It?: My 6 year old daughter was not impressed with the smell (upon coming downstairs she said, "AAH!  I can't come down the stairs with that stinky fish head smell!")  My husband came down and asked how long we had to put up with the smell.  He then closed the door that separates the kitchen from the rest of the house and opened the kitchen windows.  (Side note: I use Young Living Essential Oils and when the complaints poured in, I used Purification Oil in the diffuser and it really helped a ton!  I love that oil for helping with stink.)

It made just short of a quart of stock after I strained the veggies and spices out.  I took a taste and it has a TON of fat in it....pretty slimy/thick, like cod liver oil in a way.  I may or may not use this for something we eat.  I'm not sure if the family will eat it or not.   If anyone has a fish stock based recipe you love, let me know!  [ed. note: I am thinking I should have done more skimming and when it's cooled, perhaps I can skim off the fat that should have come off earlier.]

UPDATE: This stuff stinks.  Really, really stinks.  And it stank up every container it was in (the stainless steel pot, the glass liter pitcher (which my husband requested I remove it from because it was stinking up the fridge due to the small holes in the lid), and the glass container to which it was transferred.  Once cooled, at least half the amount was solid fat.  It's probably great for something, but not great for us.  It went in the garbage.  But that liza is one fatty fish.

How Accurate Is It?: As accurate as I could make it.  I used real fish guts, prepared in the correct manner, with the right kind of spices and ingredients.  Per usual, cooked on a modern stove.

Time to Research:  I spent about 30 minutes looking for a soup recipe I could use.  Lydia Child's American Frugal Housewife was light on soups and so I turned to Mrs. Beeton's.  She had a number of options but when I came upon the fish stock recipe it all clicked and I knew what I was going to make.

My ingredients- fish parts in the bag, carrots, onions, lemon, and spices.  The teeny limes are the kind you can usually get here, they start green but these are kind of old and turned yellow.  My vegetable lady had the American lemon when I went to buy the onions and carrots so I used that.

Liza (the type of whitefish) I bought.  They bag up the fish guts separately from the fillets (you select the whole fish and they fillet it for you).

All the ingredients in the pot!

Added the water to the pot and started cooking it for 2 hours.

Mrs. Beeton said to strain the stock, just like modern recipes do.  And I knew I couldn't leave the fish bones in the stock (ouch!)

Here's what it looked like with the veggies and fish parts removed.

There was a lot of spice left after pouring the stock into my container.

I rescued the carrots and rinsed them off.  I hate wasting food!

The finished product.  You can see the fat on the side.  This is a 1 liter pitcher so the net amount is just under a quart.