Sliced Fish Soup - the office crowd's favourite lunch
Singapore's CBD runs on fish soup. true or false?
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since when did fish soup become the popular lunch staple for our white collar friends in the CBD in Singapore? I mean, we’re not complaining at the fact of this since one can find REALLY good fish soup spread out across hawkers around the country.
we recently recreated our version of the dish and needless to say, it tasted DIVINE. the key to this is using the freshest fish that you can find possible, and also it its worth taking the time into making the soup, making sure maximum flavours get extracted from the fish bones and dried fish items.
Sliced Fish Soup
(serves 4)
1 seabass / grouper / pomfret / batting (approx. 500g), filleted (reserve bones and head)
1 egg white
2 tsp fish sauce
1/2 tsp ground white pepper
soup:
bones from the filleted fish
oil, for shallow frying
2.5 litres water
3 pcs dried sole fish
50 g dried anchovies (ikan bilis)
30g ginger, sliced
2 spring onion, white part only
1 red onion, halved
3 tbsp fish sauce
salt, to taste
ground white pepper
to assemble:
1 head iceberg lettuce, cleaned
2 tomatoes, quartered
300g block silken tofu
1 cup fried shallots
4 portions rice / thick vermicelli (according to preference)
8 chilli padi, sliced
3 tbsp light soy sauce
directions:
heat oil in a pan on medium heat. pat the fish bones and head dry and shallow fry in the oil on both sides until browned and crisp. transfer to a soup pot and add ginger, spring onion, red onion, sole fish, anchovies. add the water and bring to a gentle boil.
skim off any scum that comes afloat. turn down the heat, cover pot with a lid and simmer for 1 hour to extract the fish flavour. the soup will turn slightly cloudy.
after 1 hour, fish out all the solid ingredients and season the soup with fish sauce and pepper, to taste. add tomatoes and silken tofu and simmer until soft.
marinate the fish slices with egg white, 2 tsp fish sauce and pepper and leave it for 30 minutes.
to assemble the soup, lay down rice/vermicelli into a bowl. arrange the lettuce. using a strainer, submerge a portion of the fish slices into the simmering soup and cook for 1 minute or until just nicely cooked. arrange into the bowl along with the tofu and tomato.
garnish with fries shallots and another dash of white pepper. garnish with a condiment of chilli padi and soy sauce on the side and enjoy!