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.