Here is a suggestion on sour soup for summer, using sea bream's head and end pieces, which can be found easily in supermarkets here in Japan.
Simple version: Sea bream's head sour soup.
Ingredients (for two people without rice, or 4 people served with rice):
1. 1 sea bream's head and end parts (head already split into 2 halves)
2. about 20g of fresh ginger.
3. 1 pineapple.
4. 1-2 M-sized tomato(es).
5. several stalks of small green onion.
6. several stalks of dill.
7. a little of black pepper.
8. 5 tbs of fish sauce (nuoc mam).
9. a little of table salt.
10. 1 tbs of cooking sake / cooking white wine.
Steps:
i) wash the fish, put it in a pot, add water so that it submerges the fish. Heat at medium heat. After water starts boiling, keep heating at medium heat for 1-2 minutes, so that the foam will appear. Turn off the heat, throw away all the first water with foam.
ii) add 1.5L of new cool or hot water into the pot of fish, add the sliced ginger, cooking sake / wine, a pinch of salt then close the lid and heat at medium heat (high heat might cause water to boil so strongly it might break the fish apart) until boil. Take off the lid, continue to take off the foam that comes out just little by little and keep boiling at low heat for 5 minutes for sake / wine to vaporize.
iii) in the meanwhile, cut the pineapple into pieces at moderate edible size.
iv) when the broth is all clean and clear, add the pineapple pieces and fish sauce into the pot, shut the lid and cook at medium heat for at least 10 minutes.
v) open the lid, cut tomato(es) into 6-8 parts and add into the pot, cook at low heat for 5 minutes.
vi) if you can eat the fish head nicely, you can serve it in the bowl or separate plate. Serve soup warm with fresh green onions and dill, and a little bit of black pepper.
You can add more salt or fish sauce, vinegar etc. to taste.
More dedicated version: Sour soup noodle using sea bream head broth.
Additional ingredients:
11. rice noodle: 100g dried noodle/1 serving, so 200g dried noodle for 2 servings.
12. sliced fish pieces (here we use cod): 60g/1 serving, so 120g for 2 servings.
13. 1 ts of turmeric powder．
14. 1 tbs of potato starch / corn starch.
15. 0.5-1 tbs of cooking oil.
16. a few shiitake mushrooms, either fresh or dried ones that were washed and turned back to big size in warm water.
Steps:
while we are at i), ii), iii),
iii') boil the rice noodle, then rinse in cool water and put in a bowl.
iv') dry out excessive water from fish slices with cooking paper, then add a pinch of salt, a little of dill (dried dill is OK), turmeric powder and starch, rub gently.
v') add the shiitake into hot pot and cook with fish and pineapple.
while at iv), v),
vi') heat the fry pan then add cooking oil, and fry the fish slices. Cook each side 5 minutes at medium heat, turn with turner. Turn off the heat.
vii) This time we don't serve the head in the bowl. Serve warm soup with rice noodle, fried fish, fresh green onion, dill, a little of black pepper.
If you like it grand with more toppings, you can add fish balls / fish cake, bean sprouts, shiso, more herbs, etc.
Hope you enjoy the recipe.
Bon appetit!