Fish Head and Dad

This is a soup that makes me think of my dad. One modeled after one of his creations. Two, we both love dishes that have odd ingredients and involving sucking on bones. This soup is just quartered salmon head, silken tofu, century egg, cilantro, scallion, dashi, soy sauce, cooking oil and sesame oil. Salmon head and century egg really aren't very odd ingredients in certain households, but both rarely make an appearance in my own kitchen. There are lots of nooks and crannies in a fish head, which make them perfect for people like my dad and me.

It's better if you can throw in salted preserved duck egg, but the Chinatown market men were muttering something about how they can't sell it anymore raw, then can only sell it cooked. No wonder my go-to-Chinatown market had raw duck eggs to sell. Apparently, people need to salt and preserve their own eggs now. Sounds like an upcoming project. Salted duck eggs are a delicious way to feed oneself quickly and cheaply. Just throw it in the rice cooker when cooking rice, and then you have salted egg to eat with your rice, which is all one needs for a meal in a pinch. It's much better than eating straight salted rice, which is one vegetarian I know does. That sounds very dull to me.

The soup, however, is not. I might have gone a bit overboard with the dashi because it might have been just a smidge too savory. The century egg was delicous though, even if it does take getting used to visually. The salmon head has lots of fatty parts, and the cheek is one of the best parts of the fish. Confession, even though most people like the cheek most, my favorite is the armpit! Really, that triangular piece of flesh that's right underneath the front fins seem even more flavorful and have even better texture the cheek. Keep it in mind next time you are at a Chinese banquet.