Roly Poly Fish Head Soup

"Okay, I give... the original title of this recipe didn't include "Roly Poly." But in the spirit of fun that the recipe was gifted to me by my childhood mentor, Mr. Vanderwal, I just *had* to include it. He, of course, recalled the days when I and my silly little friends would drive he and other adults nuts with repeated verses of the song "Fish Heads" and he sent me the recipe from an Oregonian clipping in 1999 along with congratulations on my then-recent wedding. :) So I dedicate this one to you, Stan. All my love! (Recipe adapted from “The Chinese Cookbook” by Craig Claiborne and Virginia Lee.)"
 
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Ready In:
30mins
Ingredients:
11
Serves:
8
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ingredients

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directions

  • Fill a large pot with water and bring it to a boil. Add the cod cheek(s) or other non-only fish head(s) (make sure those gills are removed!) and the chicken liver. Allow the water to come back to a boil, then remove it from the heat. Drain the water from the pot and discard the liquid. Set the semi-cooked fish and liver aside to cool.
  • Remove any meat from the fish bones; discard bones, set aside meat. Dice the cooked liver into 3/8-inch pieces; set aside.
  • Fill a small bowl with boiling water and soak the mushroom pieces in the hot water for 10 minutes, then drain and set aside.
  • Fill a saucepan with water and bring it to a boil. Add the spinach leaves and let them blanch for 10 seconds. Remove them with a sieve or skinner and immediately run them under cold water to halt the cooking. Squeeze any excess water from the leaves and set aside.
  • Bring the saucepan of water back to a boil and blanch the snow peas for 10 seconds, then remove the peas and run them under cold water. Set them aside.
  • In a pot bring the chicken broth to a boil, then add the bamboo shoots, chicken liver pieces, fish meat, and soaked mushroom pieces. Gently simmer over low heat until the fish flakes easily.
  • Whisk the cornstarch together with the 1/3 cup cold water, then gradually stir it into the soup. Bring the soup to a boil and cook just until the soup thickens, then remove from heat.
  • Add the blanched spinach and snow peas.
  • While the soup is still piping hot, gradually add the egg whites while stirring constantly.
  • Serve in a soup tureen, garnished with the chopped green onions.

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RECIPE SUBMITTED BY

<p>It's simply this: I love to cook! :) <br /><br />I've been hanging out on the internet since the early days and have collected loads of recipes. I've tried to keep the best of them (and often the more unusual) and look forward to sharing them with you, here. <br /><br />I am proud to say that I have several family members who are also on RecipeZaar! <br /><br />My husband, here as <a href=http://www.recipezaar.com/member/39857>Steingrim</a>, is an excellent cook. He rarely uses recipes, though, so often after he's made dinner I sit down at the computer and talk him through how he made the dishes so that I can get it down on paper. Some of these recipes are in his account, some of them in mine - he rarely uses his account, though, so we'll probably usually post them to mine in the future. <br /><br />My sister <a href=http://www.recipezaar.com/member/65957>Cathy is here as cxstitcher</a> and <a href=http://www.recipezaar.com/member/62727>my mom is Juliesmom</a> - say hi to them, eh? <br /><br />Our <a href=http://www.recipezaar.com/member/379862>friend Darrell is here as Uncle Dobo</a>, too! I've been typing in his recipes for him and entering them on R'Zaar. We're hoping that his sisters will soon show up with their own accounts, as well. :) <br /><br />I collect cookbooks (to slow myself down I've limited myself to purchasing them at thrift stores, although I occasionally buy an especially good one at full price), and - yes, I admit it - I love FoodTV. My favorite chefs on the Food Network are Alton Brown, Rachel Ray, Mario Batali, and Giada De Laurentiis. I'm not fond over fakey, over-enthusiastic performance chefs... Emeril drives me up the wall. I appreciate honesty. Of non-celebrity chefs, I've gotta say that that the greatest influences on my cooking have been my mother, Julia Child, and my cooking instructor Chef Gabriel Claycamp at Seattle's Culinary Communion. <br /><br />In the last couple of years I've been typing up all the recipes my grandparents and my mother collected over the years, and am posting them here. Some of them are quite nostalgic and are higher in fat and processed ingredients than recipes I normally collect, but it's really neat to see the different kinds of foods they were interested in... to see them either typewritten oh-so-carefully by my grandfather, in my grandmother's spidery handwriting, or - in some cases - written by my mother years ago in fountain pen ink. It's like time travel. <br /><br />Cooking peeve: food/cooking snobbery. <br /><br />Regarding my black and white icon (which may or may not be the one I'm currently using): it the sea-dragon tattoo that is on the inside of my right ankle. It's also my personal logo.</p>
 
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