Index – Culture – Smart About The Perfect Chowder

Since we “average Hungarians” barely eat fish during the year, we don’t care about the Danube vs. Tisza fish soup is a bloody debate among fans. However, now that we consume a third of the annual fish consumption of 6 to 7 kilograms in a few days, it doesn’t hurt to get a feel for the fish soup front.

Baja or Tisza: river warfare

In Baja, to put it more precisely, it is worth using carp (2/3) and a small part of catfish (1/3) for fish soup on the Danube, and some pike as a seasoning. It is easy to do:

• Put the pieces of fish and onion, sliced, soaked and salted for 1-2 hours in cold water, then we boil it as quickly as possible,
• when the cooked fat of the fish has already boiled and appears on top of the juice, add the finely ground homemade peppers,
• then we do it by shaking it all the way, while rinsing the peppers attached to the wall of the pot / cauldron with the juice, so we don’t bitterly ruin our soup.

We did well if the result was a silky, shiny, fresh-tasting emulsion. Gently scoop the fish out of the finished hot soup with a shovel and place the freshly cooked juice, fish and match dough in a separate bowl (Low version).

In fact, this is how fishermen made Tisza in the 18th century. Since the 16th century, the fish soup with paprika, yet another method has spread thanks to the innkeepers called Tisza fish soup.

• Fish heads, tails and small fishes are cooked over high heat with onions (possibly tubular peppers) over high heat, which they pierce.
• The resulting broth is the paprika and the previously cut, cooked and salted fish slices are added.

It’s a favorite of many, which is honestly understood, but it’s made from fish waste in an army of restaurants, cooked to a sticky taste, and heated multiple times, eliminating the original fish experience. cool. Even if the latter doesn’t eat, it’s nice to be able to divide the country into two camps anyway.

But do you measure the carp?

Our favorite version is a combination of the two technologies that we find in Akasztói Halascsárda. On the one hand, the best raw material is at hand, the high-quality hanging carp with gold ribs (this is the Hungarian Label Rouge), on the other hand, after long experimentation and refinement, it achieves the best flavor and possible texture, making fish soup with heart and soul.

On the hook, pond fish production relies heavily on natural foods, plus only high-starch, low-protein grains are given to fish, corn and sorghum. While the literature writes 4-5 kg ​​of complementary food, only 2 kg is given here, thus avoiding fatty carp because, unlike mammals, lean meat is finer than pond fish.

The Szarvasi P34 grown here reaches the ideal weight of 2.5 kg by the third summer, and another advantage is that it is resistant to a number of fish diseases (including the recently devastating herpes of fish). It takes place in all places, from the rearing of the “mother animal” to reproduction.

10 kg of carp are removed per year (6 to 8 females) and then fertilized in the laboratory with skimmed fish milk. Following the method of Professor Elek Vojnárovics, they are placed in Zuger jars, where after 4-5 days the small fish hatch. From there, they go to the hatchery (where their food is curiously cooked with egg yolk) and then, after a few days, to a fish pond clean of crabs that are dangerous for them, but rich in plankton, usually at the end of May. .

Approximately in mid-summer, when the food needs of the fish are high but there is less natural food, feed feeding begins. In this case, thinning is also done to leave enough habitat for the fish. To provide a more natural habitat, the fish (80 percent carp, busa, grass carp, perch, and bream) are kept in a mixed and mixed population in the lakes so that predators do not harm the population.

In late fall and winter, when the water temperature drops below 5-6 degrees Celsius, the fish retreat to the deeper parts of the lakes, the fish beds, where they occasionally get more oxygen-rich water through from the gates directly from the main Kiskunság canal.

Neither hybrid nor freak: mixed

Although one of the most sought-after varieties in the fish tavern is catfish (which can also be eaten fried or fried), the real favorite is carp fish soup with fish fillets and offal. In your case, the carp in the fish soup is also not fibrous, because in the fish filleted and infused every 4-5 millimeters, the splinter is cut, which becomes soft after 2 hours of salting and then almost completely disappears on exposure heat.

• Make a head and bone broth, with onion, a couple of garlic cloves, cooked for 3 hours but not marked.
• They are mixed with a bottling mixer, filtered thoroughly (do not pass!) And when cooled, the fat is removed from the top. As a result, the peppers do not stop at the fat later, but are thoroughly mixed with the juice.
• After a long experiment, they came to the conclusion that only 1½ dkg of finely ground pepper powder was used for one liter of soup. This amount is added to the base juice, which is cooked for 25 minutes in a classic cauldron.
• Then the fish fillet is added, which is already cooked over a low heat so that the meat of the fish does not break.
• Forty minute total cook time ensures that the peppers form a silky emulsion with the juice.
• As they have the quality of the fish and the water, they only need to pay special attention to the peppers, but they have been buying the same quality for twenty years from a family producer in Harta.

(Cover image: Bakcsy Árpád / Index)