Classic Ukha (Russian Fish Soup) with Potatoes
A delicious, aromatic, wholesome soup made with heart! I love a classic ukha, especially cooked over a campfire right by the river while fishing. Today I tried to capture that feeling by making this tasty fish soup at home on the stove.
Cooking method
-
Step 1:
How do you make a classic ukha with potatoes from river fish? The first step is cleaning the fish — in our house my husband always handles that, so mine was ready to go. I had a whole carp plus the spine, tail, and head of a catfish left over from another dish. You can use any river fish in place of the carp and catfish — perch, crucian carp, pike, or whatever you've caught today. And if it came from the store rather than the river, be sure to clean and gut it well.
-
Step 2:
Put the heads, spines, and tails in a pot and cover with 2 liters of clean water. Spring water is best for this dish — the water really matters here, since it's the fish's native element, after all! Set it over the heat and cook for 20–25 minutes from the boil. If you're making ukha outdoors, you'd use a cauldron instead of a pot, of course.
-
Step 3:
Meanwhile, peel the vegetables — onion, carrot, garlic — wash the herbs, and get the spices ready.
-
Step 4:
Ukha loves plenty of bay leaf and peppercorns — I'm using a peppercorn blend with black, red, and white pepper, which is just lovely. A little allspice would be nice here too, but I didn't have any.
-
Step 5:
Salt it halfway through cooking. The fish broth looks a bit unappealing at first — but only for now.
-
Step 6:
After 25 minutes, strain the broth through a sieve. If you like, once the heads cool a bit, you can pick the meat off them. I was surprised to find a catfish head has few bones and a lot of meat, so there's plenty to pick — though a carp head, to me, has little worth eating. That's a matter of taste.
-
Step 7:
Return the fish broth to the stove and bring it back to a boil.
-
Step 8:
Meanwhile, cut the potatoes into large pieces.
-
Step 9:
Dice the onion.
-
Step 10:
Cut the carrot into half-moons.
-
Step 11:
When the broth boils, add the potatoes, onion, and carrot. Cook for 15 minutes. When the vegetables are nearly done, add the bay leaf and peppercorns and cook another 5 minutes so the spices release their aroma.
-
Step 12:
Now add the pieces of raw carp. Reduce the heat to its lowest setting so the liquid just barely bubbles. Cook for another 30 minutes.
-
Step 13:
Five minutes before it's done, pour a shot of vodka into the pot — it makes the ukha clear and brings out the flavor — and season with salt to taste. Then turn off the heat and let it rest for 10–15 minutes.
-
Step 14:
Make the garlic sauce (lyok): press the garlic into a small bowl, ladle in some hot broth from the pot, and pour it over the garlic.
-
Step 15:
Let it steep for 10–15 minutes, just like the finished ukha.
-
Step 16:
While the ukha and garlic sauce steep, finely chop the parsley and dill.
-
Step 17:
Ladle the finished ukha into bowls, sprinkle with herbs, and serve with the garlic sauce on the side.
-
Step 18:
The aroma is simply amazing! Enjoy!
- Sure, this ukha is a little different from one cooked over a campfire, but it makes a worthy stand-in — you can't always get out to nature, let alone haul along a cauldron and all the rest. Give it a try and feel the warm river breeze where our fish once swam...
Caloric content of the products possible in the composition of the dish
- Onion - 41 kcal/100g
- Ripe potatoes - 80 kcal/100g
- Baked potatoes - 70 kcal/100g
- Mashed potatoes - 380 kcal/100g
- Boiled potatoes - 82 kcal/100g
- Potatoes in uniform - 74 kcal/100g
- Fried potatoes - 192 kcal/100g
- Carrots - 33 kcal/100g
- Dried carrots - 275 kcal/100g
- Boiled carrots - 25 kcal/100g
- Garlic - 143 kcal/100g
- Bay leaf - 313 kcal/100g
- Parsley greens - 45 kcal/100g
- Dill greens - 38 kcal/100g
- Vodka - 235 kcal/100g
- Water - 0 kcal/100g
- A mixture of peppers with peas - 231 kcal/100g
- Bersh - 83 kcal/100g
- Roach - 88 kcal/100g
- Ruff - 88 kcal/100g
- Gustera - 97 kcal/100g
- Lin - 40 kcal/100g
- Chub - 127 kcal/100g
- Ide - 81 kcal/100g
- Asp - 98 kcal/100g
- Czechon - 88 kcal/100g
- Rudd - 100 kcal/100g
- Char - 135 kcal/100g
Similar recipes
- Eat outdoors
- Classic recipes
- Soups
- Fish and seafood
- Vegetables
- Spices seasonings spices
- Alcohol
- Other
- Garlic
- Bay leaf
- Pepper
- Dill
- Vodka
- Water
- Classic soups
- Cooking
- Fish soups
- Potato soup
- Fish with vegetables
- River fish
- From carrots
- From potatoes
- From onion
- No eggs
- Balanced nutrition
- Recipes for lean dishes without butter