Making Fish Stock

[Fugu]

Eyeball stock , true eG material! Roasted tuna eyeball is pretty good too.

[ryanj]

I'll concur with the 45-60 minute cooking time. As for ingredients, classic stocks should be made up of 100% H2O, 50% bones and trimmings (soaked), 20% aromatics (only onions and celery in fish stock, carrots can give it an orange hue), acid and herbs. I use white wine for my acid; thyme, peppercorns and bay leaves for my herbs. Fish stock won't come out gelatinous with this method, and reducing it on its own does give it a hint of bitterness to me. Never bring it to a boil, but a low one-to-two-bubble-per-second-simmer is ideal.

Now onto the eyes. There is a Spanish chef, who's name escapes me, who was doing demonstrations regarding the eyeballs of fish. He has been using them to thicken sauces. They really won't make that much difference by leaving them in clarity-wise, and the benefit they give for thickening the amount of stock someone makes at any one time is negligible. He did use a lot of eyes.

[Doodad]

Thank you "hathor" for the posting help.

First the fish heads directly from Fortune Fish Company (from Chicago):

The pulled eyes:

http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/11976448...0_5498_1393.jpg

The eyes with aromatics in water:

http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/11976448..._5498_15993.jpg

The product after light simmer 15 minutes and resting 15 minutes:

http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/11976448...0_5498_4797.jpg

The final stock strained through 4 layers cheesecloth:

http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/11976448..._5498_25281.jpg

Results in my opinion?  Not bad at all.  The stock was good.  Not strongly gelatinous but full of flavor.  A little oily but not too significant it seems.  The messiest part was the ink stuff that leaked from the eyes and left pepper looking flakes in the stock that a chinois didn't catch the first strain through (calling for the need for cheesecloth layers which removed them all).

Thank you eGullet for the encouragement to test my training.  Leave the eyes in.  I will at least.

←

You, my friend, are awesome. I had no idea I would start all this. I have to say, for all the mess, disposal etc I am going with heads only from now on. It came out very good and as the other poster pointed out, carrots did tinge the color. Didn't matter in the finished dish which had tomato anyway, but would not work for most applications.

Hats off to you sir/madam.

[muichoi]

I used to make fish stock but now don't find it useful, except for that made from shellfish-but really, 20 mkins is plenty unless you like the taste of glue, and much of the liquid should be wine.

[hathor]

Saltedgreens, that is an image that will stick with me for a long time!

Glad your stock turned out well....what did you make with it?