#gout KILLER fish soup!

Ok, ok…so it was great.  I can’t take the credit.  I was so inspired by my friend Craig Fear, that as soon as I got home from the annual Nutritional Therapy Association Conference, I went out and had my guy at Whole Foods filet me a Red Snapper, and gotter done.  AND, making this killer fish soup was every bit as easy as Craig said it would be!

“Bone Broth Secrets From Asia”

That’s what the name of the Craigs talk at the conference was titled.  To back it all up, he wrote the book, “Fearless Broths and Soups” – so I bought it, had him sign, it and read almost the whole thing on the plane ride home.

THEN…I came home and got busy.  I wanted to outline my adventure to inspire you – it was EASY!  Check it out!

#1) Make a list, go buy what you need.

• Get a fish, have it filleted, keep the head & the carcass
• 1 onion, some carrots, some celery
• ginger, garlic, lemon grass, mushrooms
• white wine
• jalapeno, bell peppers
• cilantro
• …and anything else that sounds good!

#2) Start with good ingredients, do the prep.

Wash, peel, chop everything that needs it.  Get high quality stuff – organically grown vegetables and herbs, wild-caught fish….i.e. foods that have nutrients still in them.

Nutrient dense, whole foods are what good bone broths or stocks are made of…and that’s what kills gout.

#3) Lemon Grass is magic.

I didn’t know it, but in lots of Asian and especially Thai food, lemon grass is the magic.  Many of health benefits come from lemon grass; it helps with digestion, rheumatoid arthritis (gout?), muscle cramping, and headaches.

#4)  Butter.  Garlic.  Onions. 

Bring your souper douper soup pot up to medium low heat, melt the butter, and let the garlic and onions cook for about 10 minutes, until the onions are translucent.  This releases all the active ingredients in the garlic and onion, makes everything taste FANTASTIC, and you don’t end up with garlic & onion breath. (I learned that from The Gout Wife)

Then add your veggies – celery & carrots, let them cook and soften.

#5)  Lay your precious fish head/carcass on top of the nicely simmering butter, garlic, onions, celery, and carrots.

This is a very important step.  This lets a lot of the nutritional value of the fish release the biochemical nutrition that makes up the fish.

After about 5 minutes or so, add filtered, non-chlorinated water and until everything is covered.

#6)  Check to see how much heat is you’re using; if it’s boiling, that’s too much (Craig told me).

It should just be simmering slowly, a little bit of bubbles coming up – don’t get aggressive and impatient.

Soon, as with all bone broths, a “scum” will form.  Use a fine mesh skimmer (or whatever you’ve got) to skim the scum and discard.  Try not to discard the vegetables and onions in the process.

#7)  Shrimp!  It’s easy! And fairly well priced.

Shrimp is just one idea – you can try any kind of fish or seafood that sounds good to you.  In my next foray in doing a fish broth/soup, I am going to use squid.  I saw at Whole Foods they have pounded fillets or the tubes (the tentacles I think) and they’re cheap!

(I know…they say shrimp is bad for gout…I don’t subscribe!)

#8) Prep your shrimp, and get your cilantro and ginger ready to go into the pot.

Some herbs and spices need to be added in at a later time in the process.  Cilantro is one of them, ginger is not – it could probably have been put in at the garlic & onions stage.

I bought cooked shrimp, so it was already de-veined, all I had to do was rinse it a few times and pull the tails off.

#9)  After the veggies and fish head have been simmering for about 45 minutes…in a big skillet, melt down either butter on coconut oil, and saute’ the rest of the veggies so they are somewhat cooked and soft.

With some softer and more delicate kinds of vegetables and ingredients, you don’t need to do this – you just add them in in the last 10 minutes or so.  But with hard vegetables or maybe even mushrooms, you want to saute’ them a little, just to make sure they are completely cooked.

#10)  White wine!  You can add some (to taste) right after you add the water!

Or you can add some right after the water starts to get hot, and a little bit here and there all along, to adjust the taste.

I used a Sauvignon Blanc for this one, but it’s up to you to experiment with different grapes and flavors….or no wine at all!

#11)   Viola!  Serve in your coolest bowls!

This is where your skill and artful prowess will come in. What ingredients you use – their shapes, colors, textures, etc, can make your broth creation more aesthetically pleasing…or not.

In my case, I thought this one was as visually pleasing as it tasted!

#12)  Do some interesting things to enhance and mystify the flavor! 

Tamari/soy sauce, hot toasted sesame oil, and fish sauce! (what is fish sauce?)

There are SO many different things you can do to change the flavors and give your broth creations endless incredible taste characteristics…the possibilities are endless!

So what do you think?  Does this seem easy enough for you to do?  Literally, as I said in the beginning, I learned how to do this from what little bit I picked from Craig at the NTA Conference.  As I said, I read half the book on the plane ride home, got off the plane, went to the grocery, got the fish and other ingredients, had the fillets that night, and got home from work the next night…and made this all in one hour.  Boom. Done. Killin’ it!

That is the one thing you need to know…the magic secret to making fish broths that are not fishy…you only simmer fish broth for ONE HOUR, max!

Fish Soup, Beef Stock, Chicken Broth, Pork Broth…

This is the way our ancestors have been eating for centuries.  THIS is a really good way for you to get back in touch with the food that is going into your body.  THIS is how you start healing your body and improving your body chemistry and moving away from your life of gout.

To some, this is what would be termed as “peasant food” – that’s perfect.  Simple, Fast, Easy, and Cheap…just like the Kill Gout FORMULA!  This is how you learn to cook your own food…the food that is going to kill your gout.

You keep asking me, “what should I eat?” – this is it! Click the link, Craig has the step-by-step process all lined out for you to become a master!