@HDFan: Thank you. Very glad to learn that you liked it.
Now, I'm not from the US, hence, US measurements are not what I use, and - as long as the measurements are internally consistent with one another - it doesn't really matter what unit is used.
However, having said that, with a dish that I am used to making, a dish that I have more or less mastered, in general, I am not terribly prescriptive (and I don't bake; baking tends to be very precise re measurements for very good reasons, and unforgiving re a desire not to be confined to the exact instructions of the recipe), which means that I tweak it, as taste, personal preference and mood, and above all, what is to hand, all allow.
One of my tweaks is to double, if not triple, the amount of garlic in any written recipe.
Fish soups allow for amazing variations: The New England (and UK) chowders, some of which I grew up with (the key here is a medley of smoked fish, white fish, salmon, and sometimes, shellfish, and root vegetables, I will always add garlic to this, and often, with cream and/or milk), those wonderful Asian hot and sour spicy fish broths (lemongrass, lime, chilli, ginger, Asian fish sauce, sometimes coconut milk, and, perhaps, garlic, among the key flavours), those incredible Scandivavian fish dishes - tomatoes and fennel (though, as I can't always lay hands on fennel, it rarely makes an appearance), plus shellfish (though rarely smoked fish) all playing a role; until a visit to Sweden, I had never used tomatoes in a "European" fish recipe, and so on.
In other words, fish soups allow you to experiment.
For the fish stock, I first prepared a base:
I will take the liberty of quoting from my own original post, and adding a few comments.
For the base for the stock: I started with finely diced onions in olive oil, plus minced garlic (around ten or eleven cloves, as I am rather partial to garlic), and several anchovies - chopped - stirred and dissolved into the onion and garlic mix. Anchovies confer a fantastic unami flavour as the base of a sauce, especially a fish sauce.
Now, you can also add finely diced celery and carrot - so that with the onion, they make up the classic mirepoix of French cooking, or the classic soffritto of Italian cooking - at the outset, when preparing the base for your stock, and I sometimes do this.
Even those ingredients - especially, when you have added anchovies that dissolve in the olive oil, diced onions and minced garlic, (and carrots and celery, if desired) - will give you an excellent base to a fish sauce when you add stock (I usually use chicken stock, rather than vegetable, as the latter is too salty, and I write as a salt addict).
When they had cooked down, and softened, I added the shells (and heads) of several shrimp, - which I had peeled - and stirred that lot through, letting them simmer for a few minutes, so that the shrimp heads (and shells, and tails) would add to the flavour of final dish.
This step allows for an exceptionally flavoursome fish stock even if it is a bit labour intensive (and time-consuming).
Next, I added stock, (not quite a litre jug of chicken stock), plus a few dessertspoons of Asian fish sauce (very good with any fish recipe); that (plus the shell & shrimp heads and shrimp tails) was allowed to simmer for around twenty minutes, to reduce and intensify the flavour.
After the tomatoes were added, their tin was rinsed out (ordinary tap water) into the sauce, as well.
Seriously, for (homemade) fish stock, the essentials - to my mind - are: Diced onions, minced garlic (diced carrot & celery if preferred), but - and these two ingredients do make a significant difference and they are not that expensive:
Firstly: Anchovies in oil: Get them in an Italian deli or any good deli - Ortiz make excellent ones, Spanish, Portuguese, or Italian cuisine makes much use of them; the tins are better value, (but you must use all of the anchovies, once you open the tin), whereas the small glass jars of anchovies in olive oil - while more expensive, also allow you to use just what you need for that particular dish, leaving the rest of the anchovies in the olive oil of their jar.
Secondly: A large bottle of Asian fish sauce; any fish dish will be immeasurably enhanced by a few generous spoons of this sublime liquid; dessertspoons suit me, but, any large spoon will do, and you add this to taste. Soy sauce can also be used in such a dish (with a light hand), but, to my mind, for a fish dish, Asian fish sauce works far better.
The thing is, most fish is fairly lacking in flavour, - (sometimes, that is a blessing, if one wants a soothing dish) -but also cooks quite quickly. However, for a fish soup or broth, the sauce will need to do the heavy lifting of bestowing most of the flavour.
Now, I'm not from the US, hence, US measurements are not what I use, and - as long as the measurements are internally consistent with one another - it doesn't really matter what unit is used.
However, having said that, with a dish that I am used to making, a dish that I have more or less mastered, in general, I am not terribly prescriptive (and I don't bake; baking tends to be very precise re measurements for very good reasons, and unforgiving re a desire not to be confined to the exact instructions of the recipe), which means that I tweak it, as taste, personal preference and mood, and above all, what is to hand, all allow.
One of my tweaks is to double, if not triple, the amount of garlic in any written recipe.
Fish soups allow for amazing variations: The New England (and UK) chowders, some of which I grew up with (the key here is a medley of smoked fish, white fish, salmon, and sometimes, shellfish, and root vegetables, I will always add garlic to this, and often, with cream and/or milk), those wonderful Asian hot and sour spicy fish broths (lemongrass, lime, chilli, ginger, Asian fish sauce, sometimes coconut milk, and, perhaps, garlic, among the key flavours), those incredible Scandivavian fish dishes - tomatoes and fennel (though, as I can't always lay hands on fennel, it rarely makes an appearance), plus shellfish (though rarely smoked fish) all playing a role; until a visit to Sweden, I had never used tomatoes in a "European" fish recipe, and so on.
In other words, fish soups allow you to experiment.
For the fish stock, I first prepared a base:
I will take the liberty of quoting from my own original post, and adding a few comments.
For the base for the stock: I started with finely diced onions in olive oil, plus minced garlic (around ten or eleven cloves, as I am rather partial to garlic), and several anchovies - chopped - stirred and dissolved into the onion and garlic mix. Anchovies confer a fantastic unami flavour as the base of a sauce, especially a fish sauce.
Now, you can also add finely diced celery and carrot - so that with the onion, they make up the classic mirepoix of French cooking, or the classic soffritto of Italian cooking - at the outset, when preparing the base for your stock, and I sometimes do this.
Even those ingredients - especially, when you have added anchovies that dissolve in the olive oil, diced onions and minced garlic, (and carrots and celery, if desired) - will give you an excellent base to a fish sauce when you add stock (I usually use chicken stock, rather than vegetable, as the latter is too salty, and I write as a salt addict).
When they had cooked down, and softened, I added the shells (and heads) of several shrimp, - which I had peeled - and stirred that lot through, letting them simmer for a few minutes, so that the shrimp heads (and shells, and tails) would add to the flavour of final dish.
This step allows for an exceptionally flavoursome fish stock even if it is a bit labour intensive (and time-consuming).
Next, I added stock, (not quite a litre jug of chicken stock), plus a few dessertspoons of Asian fish sauce (very good with any fish recipe); that (plus the shell & shrimp heads and shrimp tails) was allowed to simmer for around twenty minutes, to reduce and intensify the flavour.
After the tomatoes were added, their tin was rinsed out (ordinary tap water) into the sauce, as well.
Seriously, for (homemade) fish stock, the essentials - to my mind - are: Diced onions, minced garlic (diced carrot & celery if preferred), but - and these two ingredients do make a significant difference and they are not that expensive:
Firstly: Anchovies in oil: Get them in an Italian deli or any good deli - Ortiz make excellent ones, Spanish, Portuguese, or Italian cuisine makes much use of them; the tins are better value, (but you must use all of the anchovies, once you open the tin), whereas the small glass jars of anchovies in olive oil - while more expensive, also allow you to use just what you need for that particular dish, leaving the rest of the anchovies in the olive oil of their jar.
Secondly: A large bottle of Asian fish sauce; any fish dish will be immeasurably enhanced by a few generous spoons of this sublime liquid; dessertspoons suit me, but, any large spoon will do, and you add this to taste. Soy sauce can also be used in such a dish (with a light hand), but, to my mind, for a fish dish, Asian fish sauce works far better.
The thing is, most fish is fairly lacking in flavour, - (sometimes, that is a blessing, if one wants a soothing dish) -but also cooks quite quickly. However, for a fish soup or broth, the sauce will need to do the heavy lifting of bestowing most of the flavour.
