Stock - Part 1 - Fish Stock

A good stock is the basis of many dishes - it's the essential building block in so many sauces.  Not many of us spend our days at home roasting veal bones and boiling pots for eight hours at a time, but when we do the results can be fantastic.  The cooking of good restaurants differs from that at home largely through the use of stocks.

The one stock that I make on a regular basis is fish stock - it is, to my mind, the easiest way of adding depth of flavour to a sauce for fish, or to a paella or a fishy risotto.  And fish stock is one of the quickest and easiest to make.

I've used my latest batch of fish stock twice recently - and for quite different dishes:  Sea Bass with Ginger and Spring Onion and Dover Sole with a Lemon Butter Sauce - recipe to follow soon. 

The fish you use as the base of the stock is important - there are some fish you should never use, some you can get away with and others that are simply the best.
So, you should never use an oily fish for stock - so no salmon, herring, mackerel, sardine or the like will make a good stock.  Any stock made from these will be oily and in danger of turning rancid. 
Pretty much any other fish will make a servicable stock - I've done it at a push with sea bass, for example, but these stocks tend to be cloudy and not very subtle.
The best kind of fish to use are flat: sole and brill make excellent clear stock, or if you're lucky, you might get some turbot bones from your fishmonger (though these are in demand from restaurants, so you might not be so lucky).  

If you use your fishmonger regularly,  he should be able to provide you with the required bones at no charge - if he knows you're coming in, he will even save them for you.  Mine recently gave me the bones of a large brill which made excellent stock.

Fish Stock

4lbs fish bones including heads
4 pints water
4 ounces onion, peeled, chopped
4 ounces celery chopped
4 ounces carrot, peeled or scrubbed, chopped
4 ounces button mushrooms, wiped clean and chopped
4 ounces fennel bulb, chopped*
Small bay leaf
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 tsp coriander seeds
1/2 tsp fennel seeds

Remove the gills from the fish, wash the bones & heads and place in a large saucepan/stockpot.  You may need to chop the bones to do this - but my advice is to chop them as little as possible.  Cover with the water and bring to a simmer.  Simmer for 20 minutes, removing any scum that rises.

Strain and throw away the fish bones.

Put the strained water back in the cleaned pan with all the other ingredients, return the the simmer. Simmer for half an hour.  Strain through a colander.  Now strain through muslin as many times as you can - the clearer the stock the better.  What you should have now is somewhere between two and three pints of light, clear fish stock, suitable for any purpose.
The stock will freeze well in small containers and last for about six months in the deep freeze. 

I tend to freeze in small amounts - I'll have one lot of around a pint (for use in risotto or paella or a fish soup), and the rest in quarter or half pint containers (to use for sauces).  [Not sure if I should admit this:  My lastest batch is frozen in special breast-milk freezer bags... they're the right size and have a flat bottom so stand-up while freezing!]

You can vary the flavour of the stock by using different aromatics - such as ginger or chili - but I prefer the basic version which I can then flavour as required.

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