Fish Soup / Zuppa Di Pesce

Laura Zavan

Serves

6

Preparation

1½ hrs

Cook

30 mins

Ingredients

1 onion, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
80ml olive oil
2.5kg white fish (such as sea bass, barramundi)
125ml dry white wine
200g tomatoes, peeled and chopped
1 bay leaf
1.5 litres water
1 garlic clove, halved
600g squid (and/or other molluscs and shellfish)
12 scampi (langoustines, red-claw crayfish), or gamba prawns (shrimp), or other large variety of your choosing
a few stalks of flat-leaf (Italian) parsley, chopped
1 loaf country-style bread (sliced and toasted)

NOTES

In the official version from Chioggia, half a glass of vinegar is used instead of the white wine and there is no tomato. (Tomato has been included in fish soups from the nineteenth century onwards.) There’s no parmesan cheese in fish soup either!

In Venice, you will find all the seafood you need to make a good fish soup at the Rialto Market, a fish market that dates back to the ninth century. If you aren’t able (alas!) to get to the Rialto, ask your fishmonger for advice. Every coastal town has its own recipe. Don’t forgo the scorpionfish, despite its off-putting appearance. In Italian, scorfano (scorpionfish) is used to mean someone really very ugly! Nevertheless, the scorpionfish gives a lot of flavour to the soup.

View the recipe collection here

Instructions

1.Sauté the onion, carrot and celery in 2 tablespoons of the oil in a frying pan on low heat.
2.Meanwhile, wash and clean the fish, gut them, and add the heads, fins and bones to the vegetables in the pan.
3.Sauté everything on medium heat for 2–3 minutes, add the wine, let it evaporate, then add the tomato, bay leaf and water. Simmer gently for 20 minutes then strain the stock
4.Return to the heat for 2–3 minutes, season with salt and pepper. Cut the fish into pieces.
5.In a heavy-based saucepan, heat the remaining oil with the garlic, add the squid and scampi and cook on high heat for 1 minute, stirring.
6.Add 2 tablespoons of the stock and the pieces of fish.
7. Cook for 5 minutes on low heat, or longer depending on their size.
8.Remove the garlic. If you are using shellfish, cook them separately until they open and add them at the end with their strained juices.
9.Divide the pieces of fish, squid and scampi between some deep plates, pour over the broth, dress with a little olive oil and parsley, season with pepper and serve with toasted bread.

Images and text from
Venice Cult Recipes
(mini) by Laura Zavan,
photography by
Grégoire Kalt. Murdoch
Books, RRP $32.99.

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