In Poland, depending on the region, on Christmas Eve people eat borscht or mushroom soup. Some families prepare both. There are also families which make excellent fish soup. My mum always made mushroom soup and served it with fettuccini. Sometimes she made fish soup with the leftover fish after preparing jellied carp. This gentle fish broth with carrot and small noodles was for the children who were hungry before Christmas Eve supper.

We love fish soup, so sometimes I prepare it in my kitchen. I like this awesome soup with many kinds of fish and seafood, so it isn't a cheap dish. But it is worth it.

I cook my soup in stages. Firstly, I slowly cook fish broth with lots of vegetables and seasoning. Then I spice up my soup with some tomatoes and pepper, and finally I add the fish, shrimps and octopus and boil on a low heat so as not to break up the fish pieces. There are many ingredients, but it is easy. Firstly I prepare all the ingredients beforehand, so I only need to add things, stir and spice it up. At the end I like to add a lot of coriander, but because my family doesn't like it, I usually use dill instead.

Ingredients (for 5 people)
800g of different kinds of fish
20 shrimps
2-3 cooked tentacles of an octopus
fish bouillon
leftover fish: heads, bodies with bones, fins, shrimp shells
2 carrots
2 parsley roots
a piece of celery root
a piece of leek
1 clove of garlic
1 big onion
3 bay leaves
4 allspices
6-8 peppers
2 twigs of rosemary
additionally
1 litre of tomato passata
1 tin of tomatoes without the skin
1 tin of coconut milk
a piece of ginger
3 cloves of garlic
1 shallot
1 chili pepper
1/3 fennel
1 big fresh red pepper
2 tablespoons of butter
1 lemon
a bunch of coriander or dill
salt, pepper, red sweet paprika

Put the leftover fish: heads, bodies with bones, fins, shrimp shells and the rest of the ingredients of the bouillon into a pot. Boil for a minimum of 1 hour.
Prepare the rest of the soup ingredients while the bouillon is cooking. Dice the Garlic, ginger, chili pepper, fennel and shallot. Melt the butter in a pan, add the vegetables and fry for a while. Don't brown them. Slice the fresh pepper. Grate the peel from the lemon. Slice the rest of the lemon and fry the slices in a dry pan (cover the pan with some baking paper so you don't destroy your pan).
Strain the bouillon (don't pour away the residue!). Pour the residue into a pot. Clean the leftovers of the fish: remove the bones, skin and shells and leave only the meat of the fish. Slice the carrot and parsley roots. Add the vegetables from the pan, the tomato passata and tinned tomatoes and boil for 10 minutes. Add the coconut milk, carrot, parsley roots, red pepper and fish from the bouillon and boil for 5 minutes. Spice it up with salt, pepper and paprika.
Add the pieces of the different kinds of fish, shrimps, slices of octopus tentacles and the fried slices of lemon. Boil on a low heat for 7-10 minutes. Stir gently so as not to break the fish pieces. Turn off the heat, add the lemon peel and chopped coriander or dill.

Enjoy your meal!

Try also:
Baked salmon with vegetables in parchment paper
My fisherman's burger
On the Christmas table – herring salad with red currants and cashew nuts