Thai salmon (or other fish) soup with ginger and lime juice

Last night I wanted to make soup with our new Sitka Salmon delivery, and wanted something brothy rather than a milk-based chowder, which is what I've made before. Looking through my file of saved recipes, I found this one, copied a while back from a friend's cookbook. The original recipe called for some ingredients not available to me, but it suggested substitutes that I used (lime juice instead of tamarind liquid, cilantro leaves rather than roots), and the soup came out great--more tasty than I imagined it would from such a simple recipe.  The soup alone isn't quite enough for a full dinner; we had some crackers and guacamole on the side.

I've given two sets of instructions, one for making the whole recipe at once, and one for dividing it in half, to eat on two separate nights, which is how David and I generally cook. Usually I just cook a whole recipe and heat up leftovers, but when cooking fish, I like to cook the fish on the same night I'm serving it. For this recipe, I made all the broth (including what would have been garnishes at the end), set aside half, and will add the rest of the salmon on the second night.

SALMON (or other fish) SOUP WITH GINGER AND LIME JUICE

adapted from Quick and Easy Thai

serves 4

3 cups water

3 T. coarsely chopped shallots (about 1 large bulb)

1/4 c. chopped cilantro, divided in half

1/2 t. freshly ground pepper

3-inch chunk of fresh ginger

3/4 lb salmon or other meaty fish fillets (e.g. cod, tilapia), cut into about 1" chunks

1/4 cup freshly squeezed lime juice

2 T. fish sauce

2 T. brown sugar

1/4 t. salt

2 T. thinly sliced green onions

1.     Cut up the ginger into small chunks and then mince it in a food processor.  Add the shallots, 2 T. cilantro, pepper. Process, adding 1/2 cup of the water as you process, to make a fairly smooth paste.

2.     In a medium saucepan, combine the paste with the remaining 2-1/2 cups water and bring to a boil over medium-high heat.

3.     Add the lime juice, fish sauce, brown sugar, salt, and the cut-up salmon.  Return soup to a boil and simmer until the salmon is just cooked through (about 2 minutes of total cooking time).  Stir in the green onions and remaining cilantro leaves.

If serving just 2 people and you want to cook the salmon fresh when having leftovers on a second night:

Do steps 1 and 2, as above.

3.  Add the lime juice, fish sauce, brown sugar, salt, green onions, and remaining cilantro leaves.  Divide the broth in half (about 2 cups each portion) and put one portion in the refrigerator, along with half the cut-up salmon.

4.  Put the other portion of broth back in the saucepan, add half the cut-up salmon, bring to a boil and simmer until the salmon is just cooked through (about 2 minutes of total cooking time).

5. For a second night, repeat step 4.