Rustic Fish Soup (/w Alternative Ingredients for Vegetarians)
by Justin Tyler Tate in Cooking > Soups & Stews
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Rustic Fish Soup (/w Alternative Ingredients for Vegetarians)
This soup takes it home by being simple, easy to prepare, aromatic, rustic and flavorful.
Serve it with a nice bread, or on top of rice....or do both. Beat those wintry blues with somethin' warm, nutritious and hearty in your mouth.
This recipe makes about 6 portions.
Serve it with a nice bread, or on top of rice....or do both. Beat those wintry blues with somethin' warm, nutritious and hearty in your mouth.
This recipe makes about 6 portions.
What Do We Need?
- 4 shallots (or you can go with one red onion)
- 2 or 3 sticks of celery
- ½ of a small bulb fennel
- 3-4 cloves of garlic
- 1 large fresh red chilli or 2 small dried chilies (remove the seeds if you don't like the heat)
- 2 tablespoons olive oil and a bit more just for drizzling
- 1 cup of red wine
- 800g (about one can) of chopped plum tomatoes
- ½ of a butternut squash, peeled and grated
- 500ml fish stock (substitute for this vegetarian option)
- 200g salmon fillet (Substitute for roasted red and yellow peppers)
- 300g skinned fillet of your preferred white fish. I used tilapia fillet. (substitute for roasted eggplant)
- 12 raw peeled shrimp/prawns (substitute for halved, brown, button mushrooms)
- ½ lemon
- 1 bunch of green onion and/or fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped, to garnish
- Salt and pepper to taste.
Aromatics
- Heat your pot with 2 tbsp of olive oil.
- Finely chop your aromatics.
- 4 shallots (or you can go with one red onion)
- 2 or 3 sticks of celery
- ½ of a small bulb fennel
- 3-4 cloves of garlic
- 1 large fresh red chilli or 2 small dried chilies (remove the seeds if you don't like the heat)
- Put your aromatics into your heated pot with a dash of salt and sweat them for 10-15 minutes or until translucent.
- In the meantime, chop or grate the squash.
The Wet Stuff
- Add wine, tomatoes, squash and stock to your pot and bring it to the boil.
- Cover the pot and simmer gently for 30 minutes.
- Break up the tomatoes if necessary. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
- Use an emulsion blender (one of these guys) to break up the chunks of squash if you didn't grate it a step ago. Make sure to leave the soup chunky though, remember: it's rustic.
- Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Fishy Bits
You're almost there.
- Now is the time to make the rice (if you want rice with your soup).
- Skin the salmon, but don't throw away the skin. Remove the shell and tail from the prawns/shrimp, if they have them.
- Roughly chop the white fish and the salmon.
- Put the seafood in the pot with the soup, except for the salmon skin, and simmer for about 10 minutes, or until the seafood is cooked.
- While the seafood is cooking, you can take this time to prepare your garnishes...
Garnishes
- Fry your salmon skin on both sides until it is crispy.
- Dice your green onion or parsley.
- Cut the crispy salmon skin into thin strips.
Plating
Now it is time for plating your meal. You can plate however you wish, but I will make a suggestion below:
- Start with a ladle-full of rice in the center of your bowl.
- Ladle spoonfuls of soup, mostly liquid and vegetables around the rice mound.
- Top the rice mound with 1 or 2 full ladles of soup with large chunks of the fish and shrimp.
- Sprinkle the green onion over everything.
- Place the strips of crispy salmon skin on the mound in the center.
- Drizzle lemon juice and olive oil over everything.