Italian Oyster Soup

Rinse and roughly chop fish bones. Rinse and coarsely chop soup vegetables. In a saucepan, sauté fish heads and bones in melted butter. Stir in vegetables, herbs and spices and sauté briefly. Deglaze with wine. Add water and simmer stock over low heat, about 20 minutes. Line a fine sieve with cheesecloth. Pour fish stock through sieve and let drain (do not press on solids!). Transfer stock to a pot and cook until reduced to about 1 liter (approximately 4 1/4 cups).

Blanch tomatoes, then peel, quarter, core and cut into small cubes. Rinse oysters. To open, grasp an oyster firmly in a kitchen towel with one hand. Insert an oyster knife at the hinge and rotate it until the shell pops. Separate oyster from shell by slicing muscle attachments on top and bottom shells. Pour any liquid from shell through a sieve into the soup. Brush away any shell fragments and add oysters and diced tomatoes to soup. Simmer about 4 minutes.