Saury Soup

Name: Saury Soup Recipe: Canned Fish Soup with Vegetables and Tomato
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 45 min
Total time: 1 h
Cuisine: European
Ingredients: Natural saury in oil 1 can; Cold water 5-6 cups (1–1.2 l); Carrot 1; Onion 1; Large ripe tomato 1 (or tomato paste, 1 heaped tsp); Potatoes 2-3; Garlic 1 clove; Oil from the saury can, or vegetable oil a little, for frying the tomato; Parsley and dill 0.5 bunch; Bay leaf 1-2; Dried hot chili pepper 1 pod, optional; Salt, black pepper to taste

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1 h

Saury fish soup is a good choice for dinner, and you can make it more spicy by adding tomato. Saury, like sardines, is also used to make Mimosa salad. Unlike sardines in their own juice or oil, canned saury is more aromatic, and there is no risk of overpowering the taste and smell of the fish. The base of this first course is a vegetable broth with tomato or grated tomato added, and right before the end of cooking, some of the mashed contents of a can of “natural saury in oil”.

If you can, you can use fresh fish for the soup. Saury makes a fish broth with vegetables. To keep whole pieces of fish in the soup, take them out of the broth beforehand, finish cooking the soup, then place the fish in the bowls and pour the liquid over it right before serving. Cooked this way, saury soup turns out as fragrant and tasty as it can be.

Traditionally, fish soups are made a little thicker than other soups. Because of all the vegetables and fish, they are quite often closer to a stew. They are also sometimes thickened further with béchamel sauce, flour or starch, or with potatoes boiled until soft. When making a canned fish soup, the fish itself is often the thickener: you mash it with the liquid from the can, then add it to the soup.

Canned saury is now easy to find and has long since stopped being a rarity. The cans hold pieces of fish that have been lightly smoked beforehand, with added spices and oil. The cans probably contain preservatives. As a kid, I especially liked saury in oil, its taste and aroma. When we went to the dacha or on a camping trip, we often made wonderful sandwiches from the mashed contents of a can, spread like a pâté on the very freshest bread and sprinkled with a little finely chopped sweet onion.

If you know a particular canned-food maker’s products well, there is no need to go looking elsewhere. Ideally the expiry date should not be close, and the can should not be dented and by no means bulging.

For the soup, choose ordinary fresh vegetables: carrot, onion and a few potatoes. They are the base of the dish and of a rich vegetable broth. To improve the flavor I added a little garlic to the broth. To give the soup color and flavor without adding tomato paste, I used a very ripe tomato. For serving, have parsley and dill ready. If you want the soup slightly spicy, you can add fresh or dried chili.

More with canned fish

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Mimosa Salad with Sardines

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Layered Fish Salad with Sardines

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Sprat Sandwiches

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Fish Pizza with Sardines

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Ingredients

2 servings

Natural saury in oil 1 can
Cold water 5-6 cups (1–1.2 l)
Carrot 1
Onion 1
Large ripe tomato 1 (or tomato paste, 1 heaped tsp)
Potatoes 2-3
Garlic 1 clove
Oil from the saury can, or vegetable oil a little, for frying the tomato
Parsley and dill 0.5 bunch
Bay leaf 1-2
Dried hot chili pepper 1 pod, optional
Salt, black pepper to taste

Step-by-step recipe

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Vegetable broth

Saury soup is especially tasty and light when the broth is made from young vegetables. But that is only in season. Even so, winter vegetables work perfectly well for the soup. Vegetables are an important part of any soup, so it is worth taking the best you can find. You can use other vegetables too, for example celery root and parsnip, maybe parsley root. It is even better to take a slightly overripe tomato for the soup.
Prepare the herbs and vegetables. The herbs are not cooked in the soup, so put them in cold water ahead of time to make them crisp. Peel the onion, carrot and potatoes. Dice all the vegetables into pieces of the same size, roughly twice as large as for a vinaigrette salad.
Make the vegetable broth. Pour 5-6 cups of cold water (1–1.2 l) into a pot. Add the diced vegetables to the water at the same time, salt with a pinch of salt, add 1-2 bay leaves and, if you like, a pod of dried chili. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 30 minutes, which is enough: the potatoes and carrot should be soft. Then discard the bay leaf.

Saury and tomato

Prepare the saury. Drain the oil from the opened can of fish; you won’t need it. You may keep a small amount for frying the tomato. Set aside a few pieces of saury for serving. Mash the remaining pieces of fish with a fork into a rough mixture with visible chunks of fish. There is no need to mash it too finely.
While the broth is cooking, prepare the tomato. Peel the tomato with a knife and cut it into pieces. Carefully remove the white parts, the stem area and all the seeds. Puree the tomato with a blender. Heat just a little vegetable oil in a saucepan (you can take it from the can of saury) and fry the tomato in it over medium heat until it is uniform and has thickened slightly.
If you don’t have fresh tomatoes, you can make saury soup with ordinary tomato paste, literally 1 heaped tsp. But fresh tomato tastes better.

Finishing the soup

Combine the broth with the tomato and fish. When the vegetable broth is ready, add the prepared and fried tomato puree and a finely chopped clove of garlic. Stir and bring to a boil. Add the mashed saury to the soup. Stir, then season with salt and pepper to taste. By the way, I advise adding even more black pepper than usual. Fish soups go well with freshly ground black pepper.
Bring the saury soup to a boil and cook over low heat for 3-4 minutes. Don’t let the soup bubble hard, only a gentle simmer.

Serving

Ladle the soup into bowls. Put the vegetables from the soup into the bowls and place the reserved pieces of fish in the center on top. Pour hot soup into the bowl. This kind of first course is best served at about 70°C. Simply put, let it cool a little so that it doesn’t burn your tongue.
Right before serving, sprinkle the soup with finely chopped dill and parsley, dried beforehand. By the way, you don’t want the bay leaf to end up in the bowl if you forgot to take it out. You can serve the soup with croutons of fried white bread or seasoned rusks.

Calories and macros

375 kcal

Serving ≈ 1030 g

Protein23 g26% of kcal
Fat14 g35% of kcal
Carbs35 g40% of kcal

100 g37 kcalProtein 2.2 gFat 1.3 gCarbs 3.4 g

Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.

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