Fish broth / Brodetto di pesce 

The fish broth is a typical recipe of Italian seaside resorts and could remind you of a fish soup. A poor recipe that was born to give new life to the fish that were discarded from the fish market and so the fishermen invented this delicious dish. Every region overlooking the sea has its own version: The soup of Abruzzo, Marche, Romagna and so on and so forth. In Puglia even every city has its own version like the Fano or Vasto version. A recipe that has followed an evolution of its own but which, however, remains a great classic that is difficult to resist thanks to its intense aroma.

Brodetto was born in past centuries as a poor dish of Adriatic fishermen, who cooked for themselves that catch that was difficult to sell due to its low quality or because of its small size. Each village of the Coast has its own variant but does not alter the substance of the basic recipe, whose characteristic is precisely to use different qualities of fresh fish according to the season. One of the most renowned versions is the "Portocorsinese" version, whose recipe was deposited in the Chamber of Commerce in 2006 by the Italian Academy of Cuisine.

Ingredients

CLAMS 500 gr

ANGLERFISH 350 gr

COD 400 gr

SHRIMP 400 gr

SQUIDS 400 gr

CHERRY TOMATOES 450 gr

ONION 1

 BREAD to taste

GARLIC 3 segments

PARSLEY to taste

Procedure

Clean the fish: remove the thorns, with tweezers, cod and anglerfish. Clean skin squid, remove the central bone that is between the tentacles. In a large pot put a finely chopped onion to fry with a little oil and the cherry tomatoes cut in half. Meanwhile, cut the squid into rings and add them to the pot. Cook for a few minutes, blend with a tablespoon of white vinegar and then cover with plenty of hot water. Season with salt. While the squid are cooking, in a large pan, put a drizzle of oil and two cloves of garlic and fry. Pour the clams, previously purge, and close with a lid for a few minutes until they are fully opened. Set the clams aside and let them cool down. Cut the bread into slices and grill it with a little oil. When the bread is toasted, season it by passing a peeled clove of garlic on the surface. Take the clams, now warm, and shell them. Strain the water they left and pour it into the squid pot. Put the fish slices in the soup. Take the pot by the handles and try to move it gently. Clean the shrimp from the carapace and add them to the soup 5 minutes before turning off the heat. When the heat is off, add the shelled clams and a sprinkling of finely chopped parsley. 

Recommendations

If you do not have time to clean the fish, ask your trusted fishmonger to do it for you, in this way the preparation time is halved. If you want a broth without thorns you can use squid, cuttlefish, prawns, mussels and clams. In this way you do not run the risk of finding the bones. An excellent soup fish is the mullet, a poor but particularly tasty fish. In case you want to use it for your brodetto beware of bones because it has many. If you want to use frozen fish, take care to thaw it in advance so that it loses the storage water and that it is not released during cooking in the broth. For an even stronger taste, add a finely chopped fresh chili. If you want to get a broth with a thicker consistency, pour a glass of tomato puree into cooking.