Fish Stock

The fishmonger at the Saturday market saves me the bones. Not out of generosity, exactly: he knows I'll be back next week, and the week after. A handful of flat-fish frames wrapped in damp paper, the smell clean and briny, the kind of smell that belongs to a cold morning by the coast even when you're miles from the sea.

Fish stock isn't like chicken stock. It doesn't want hours. Thirty minutes is the outer edge of what you should give it, and past that it turns sullen and bitter, metallic at the back of your mouth. This is a stock for people in a hurry, which is most of us, most of the time. You make it in the afternoon for the evening's pie, and the kitchen fills with something clean and sea-washed and quietly promising.

Only white fish. Sole, plaice, turbot, brill, cod. Nothing oily, nothing dark-fleshed, no salmon or mackerel. They'll turn the whole pot rancid and your chowder will taste of things you don't want. Ask the fishmonger. Tell him what you're making. He'll put the right bones aside and charge you next to nothing for them. I wrote it down in the notebook years ago: bones, cold water, twenty-five minutes, done. It's still the only note I need.