Main Page
Soups
Sterlet ear

Sterlet ukha (fish soup)

A recipe for an excellent ukha made from the "tsar's fish" — sterlet. Sterlet ukha is a very tasty, prized, and nourishing dish that, according to scientists, even has mood-lifting properties — fish contains natural antidepressants. Sterlet is rightly considered a royal fish, and proper sterlet is live fish.

naniki

Recipe author

Composition / ingredients

Servings:

Sterlet

0.5

Potatoes

Onion

Bay leaf

Peppercorns

Dill

Salt

Water

800

Carrots

Translation table of volumetric measures

Nutrients and energy value of the composition of the recipe

By weight of the composition:

Proteins 58 % 7 g

Fats 25 % 3 g

Carbohydrates 17 % 2 g

60 kcal

GI: 100 / 0 / 0

Cooking method

Cooking time: 50 min

Step 1:

For the ukha, get fresh sterlet, potatoes, onion, carrot, and plenty of seasonings: bay leaf, peppercorns, dill or caraway seeds, water, salt, and fresh herbs to serve. First, rinse the sterlet well, washing off all the slime that coats a whole fresh fish. I used fresh fish rather than frozen — our supermarket has big tanks.
Step 2:

Next, gut the sterlet thoroughly and remove the gills — they're small, and it's not a very convenient or pleasant job. Now rinse everything well again, then cut off the head with the fins attached to it, the tail, and the fins. Put everything except the body of the fish into a pot, add the onion (cut in half and then in half again, into big chunks), the carrot cut the same way, the dill seeds, peppercorns, and bay leaf, and cover it all with water.
Step 3:

Cook at a moderate boil, covered, for about 20 minutes — depending on the size of the fish. Mine wasn't very big — about 700 g. For the ukha I used the head, tail, fins, and a crosswise-cut piece of the body, which gave four good servings; my husband and I ate it over two lunches. If your sterlet is bigger, the head needs to cook longer.
Step 4:

Meanwhile, cut the potatoes into sticks or cubes — whichever you like — and a little onion. Take all the vegetable bits, spices, and fish out of the soup and strain the broth. Add the potato and onion to it and cook until tender. At the end of cooking, add good pieces of sterlet to the ukha — I cut mine into steaks.
Step 5:

Lower the sterlet steaks into the ukha and cook for another 10 minutes, until the fish is done.
Step 6:

Serve the finished sterlet ukha hot, sprinkled with chopped dill. Sometimes halves of hard-boiled eggs are added to the bowls when serving.

The sterlet belongs to the ancient sturgeon family, whose lineage goes all the way back to the Silurian. The fish has no scales and no backbone — instead, it has a row of spiny scutes along its back and a cartilaginous skeleton. As far back as the reign of Peter the Great, it was farmed for the royal table.