Fish n Cockle Soup

I just had to share a picture ov the beautiful Swainsona formosa, Sturt’s Desert Pea, (above) I took this shot on my travels through the Pilbra, these lay about tha desert floor like a bright red carpet with black eyes, along with other beautiful wild flowers but I decides not to take pictures ov every wild flower I seen on this trip coz I spent most ov my time last trip behind the camera lense but I had to grab a shot ov these I missed them last trip.

The friends I’m staying with in Denham WA caught a big blue chin or blue bone n a couple other lovely fish at the beginning ov the week so we had baked fish 2 nites in a row, the blue chin was filleted for the kids to eat n I kept the skeleton n gorgeous head for soup, I put it in the freeza until I was ready n the otha day we went to a beach not far from home n gathered a good sized bucket ov cockles there were five different species interestingly n I had to tried each species to see if I could tell the difference n there was a slight difference between a few but not others.

Anyway I made a stock with the skeleton plus 2 otha fish heads, cockles, lemon grass, ginger, onion, celery, cumin seeds, coriander seeds, salt, pepper, garlic, parsley, chilly, small piece cinnamon stick, 3 whole shiitake mushrooms,seaweed a bit ov mushroom soy, lemon peel, I simmered this for about 3 hours then strained n picked out the fleshy bits n tha mushrooms.

I then put the strained liquid into a pot n added the flesh n chopped mushrooms back in with chopped carrot, celery, ginger, parsley, celery salt n otha seasonings to taste. This was bought back up to tha boil for 10 minutes until veggies were just tender before adding two chopped brim fish n a bowl ov cockles for the last 10 minutes.

It was absolutly yummy a real treat n tha kids loved it too as you can see in the pictures!

Now that is how to enjoy ya food, so funny, we all enjoyed it greatly but not so much tha cleanin up, hehe.