Seafood Soup or Italian Zuppa di Pesce

Elena Butuc

After the delicious seafood paella recipe, I got the energy to cook something else from the same category. This seafood soup exceeded all my expectations. It's on the treats list - very special, whole, beautiful, tasty and interesting.

Finding, cleaning and preparing the seafood takes a little effort, but it's worth every minute invested in cooking this recipe. I also recommend it if you want to try something new and incredibly good. I advise you to pick your favourite seafood. Besides shrimps and mussels, which are the only ones required, you can use anything else you find and like. I used baby octopus and squid rings and Gilthead brim (dorade) for the fish.

It must be served with toasted baguette slices, keep this in mind when you buy the ingredients.

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Ingredients

Metric US

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Dorada fish

2 pieces

or other favourite fish - bass, salmon etc.

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Fresh shrimps

500 g

preferably fresh, not pre-cooked

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Fresh black mussels

500 g

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Frozen squid rings

300 g

or fresh

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Fresh octopus

300 g

I had 3 fresh baby octopuses

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Tomato puree

500 g

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Carrots

1 piece

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Onions

1 piece

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Celery root

1 piece

1 small root or 2 sticks of Apio celery

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Parsnip

1 piece

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Garlic cloves

6 pieces

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Extravirgin olive oil

60 ml

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Salt

1 tsp

to taste

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Ground black pepper

0.25 tsp

and, optionally, a few black peppercorns

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Chopped parsley

3 tbsp

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White dry wine

50 ml

Step by step

Seafood Soup or Italian Zuppa di Pesce - Step 1

Fillet the fish, you can watch some short videos on Youtube if you don't know how to do it.

Clean the shrimp, you can find instructions on the internet.

Place the fish carcasses and the shrimp shells in a pot.

Seafood Soup or Italian Zuppa di Pesce - Step 2

Pour enough water to cover them, add in the carrot, onion, celery root, parsley root and some black peppercorns.

Place over heat and when it comes to the boil, bring the heat down and simmer slowly for 2 hours.

Seafood Soup or Italian Zuppa di Pesce - Step 3

Clean the mussels or the clams, you can find instructions on how to clean fresh mussels on my website.

Heat 30 ml olive oil in a frying pan, fry 3 cloves of chopped garlic and add the mussels in. Stir well, put the lid on and cook for 3-4 minutes, shaking the pan frequently. When most of the mussels have opened, turn heat off.

Seafood Soup or Italian Zuppa di Pesce - Step 4

Place the mussels in a colander and collect the liquid in a bowl or a pot, we will use it later.

Seafood Soup or Italian Zuppa di Pesce - Step 5

Clean the octopus, find instructions on Youtube. Bring to the boil in plenty of water and simmer until it's very soft. Test it - if you can insert the knife easily, then it's done.

Remove from the water, cool and cut into small pieces.

Seafood Soup or Italian Zuppa di Pesce - Step 6

We still have to take the mussels out of their shells, discard the ones which haven't opened.

Save 10 mussels with a shell, for a beautiful appearance.

Seafood Soup or Italian Zuppa di Pesce - Step 7

After 2 hours of boiling, drain the fish carcasses and shrimp shells soup.

Together with the liquid from the mussels, it will be the base for the final soup.

Seafood Soup or Italian Zuppa di Pesce - Step 8

Now clean, wash and slice the squid rings. I prefer them shorter.

Seafood Soup or Italian Zuppa di Pesce - Step 9

In a heavy-bottomed pot, heat 30-50 ml olive oil and fry 3 cloves of chopped garlic. Cook only to release its flavour.

Seafood Soup or Italian Zuppa di Pesce - Step 10

Add the sliced squid in, mix well and cook for 5 minutes.

Seafood Soup or Italian Zuppa di Pesce - Step 11

Pour in a little white wine and cook for another 2-3 minutes.

Seafood Soup or Italian Zuppa di Pesce - Step 12

Add the crushed tomatoes and the liquid from the mussels, stir well and slowly simmer for 25 minutes.

Seafood Soup or Italian Zuppa di Pesce - Step 13

Pour in about 800 ml liquid from the fish and shrimp soup we just cooked and drained. You can adjust the quantity of liquid, whether you want a denser or a thinner soup. Season with salt.

Add the fish fillets, cut into medium pieces.

Stir slowly and carefully, cook for 5 minutes.

Seafood Soup or Italian Zuppa di Pesce - Step 14

Add in the cleaned fresh shrimps.

Seafood Soup or Italian Zuppa di Pesce - Step 15

Then the mussels and the octopus.

From now on, do not stir the pot with a spoon anymore, just grip the handles and shake the pot gently. Otherwise, the fish might break up and the soup won't have the right consistency.