A hearty fish soup for dinner

I was planning to prepare veggie patties or lobster ravioli for our meatless dinner last night, but my wife surprised me with a thick, delicious, Jamaican fish tea.

That's right, fish tea is fish soup -- filled with pieces of king fish steaks, fingerling potatoes, carrots, dumplings (boiled dough), hot peppers and chayote. Almost any fish would do as well. (Photo: king mackerel.)

Two bowls full, toasted baguette and wine made a lovely dinner, supplemented by two items I picked up at H Mart in Englewood -- finger maki (vegetables and rice wrapped in seaweed) and stewed pollack with peppers.

My wife used Grace-brand fish tea mix from Jamaica as the base for her soup (ShopRite in Englewood has a nice selection of Jamaican food products). The fish-flavored soup mix contains MSG. (Originally, I wrote it didn't have monosodium glutamate.)

This soup would be fairly easy to make. First, prepare two packages of  fish soup mix, according to the directions, then add the ingredients that take the longest to cook first -- carrots and potatoes. When they are tender, add remaining ingredients, plus some garlic.