Fish soup

My mother often prepared fish soup for family meals, so it is one of those dishes that always brings back fond memories. It is also an easy and very tasty dish, so the recipe brought to us today by Miguel Ángel, author of the blog Pimientos verdes, is ideal for these dates.

Le Creuset Ceramic Soup Tureen Set

The Christmas holidays are coming to an end, but there is still one of my favorite days left to celebrate: the Three Kings' Day.

For this day, I would like to suggest that you cook a very, very simple but very flavourful fish soup with semolina. I have given you the quantities for 10 people, but you can reduce them by half to make a soup for an average family. I have cooked this simple fish soup in my 28cm high cocotte , but by reducing the quantities by half, you can use a 24cm cocotte to cook it.

This is a first course that you should take into account as it is quick to prepare and its cost is reasonable. Each portion of soup cost me €4. Considering that we are talking about a dish “for holidays”, I think it should be in our cupboard of special recipes to delight the palates of our loved ones.

Ingredients (for 10 people)

• 3kg of fish for soup
• 750gr prawns
• 500gr mussels
• 200gr clams
• 1 onion
• 1 leek
• 3 small tomatoes
• ½ bulb of fennel
• 4 L of water
• 1 glass of dry white wine
• a few sprigs of parsley
• 100gr wheat semolina
• olive oil
• salt

Le Creuset round cocotte

Preparation

1. Peel the prawns and reserve the heads and skins. Keep the bodies in the fridge for later.

2. Pour a splash of olive oil into a cocotte and fry the leek, fennel and onion, which you have finely chopped. Add a pinch of salt and wait for the vegetables to soften.

3. Then add the chopped tomato and wait for it to fry well. Don't rush. The more concentrated the sofrito is, the more flavorful the soup will be. It will take about 10 minutes on medium heat to have the sofrito at its ideal point.

4. Add the heads and skins of the prawns to the cocotte and squeeze them out with the help of a spatula.

5. When the skin of the prawns has turned red and you have squeezed out all their flavour, add all the chopped fish to the cocotte and cover with water. Also add the white wine and the sprigs of parsley and let everything boil for 40 minutes. Remove any foam that forms while the broth is cooking with a skimmer .

6. While the broth is cooking, you can steam open the clams and mussels. To do this, put a finger of water in a saucepan and place it on the heat. When the water starts to boil, add the mussels and cover it. Wait a minute for them all to open. Remove from the heat and separate the bodies from the shells. Repeat the process with the clams.

7. When the broth is ready, remove it from the heat and strain it. Using a pestle or a wooden pestle, mash all the fish in a large strainer to extract all its flavor.

8. Once you have strained all the broth, add the wheat semolina and let it cook for 18 minutes. Add salt to taste and add the chopped shrimp bodies. Cook for two more minutes.

9. Divide the mussels and clams into the 10 soup bowls or deep plates and serve the soup. Try to distribute the prawns evenly so that no one complains!