Cacciucco

A red-wine fish stew with its own broth made from the heads, ladled over garlic toast.

Fish, Shellfish. Not vegetarian — contains fish, shellfish.

Ingredients

• 1.5 kg mixed fish, whole and gutted, heads kept
• 400 g squid or cuttlefish, cut into strips
• 400 g mussels, scrubbed
• 6 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 onion, 1 carrot, 1 stick celery, chopped
• 5 cloves garlic, 3 sliced and 2 whole
• 2 dried red chillies, crumbled
• 250 ml red wine
• 700 g passata
• 1 litre water, for the head broth
• 1 teaspoon salt

To serve

• 6 thick slices country bread, toasted

Method

1. Fillet the fish or have it filleted, and KEEP EVERY HEAD AND BONE.
2. Simmer the heads and bones in the litre of water with the carrot and celery for 30 minutes, then strain it hard through a sieve, pressing. Throw the solids away. This broth is what distinguishes a cacciucco from a stew with fish in it.
3. Cook the onion and sliced garlic in the oil for 8 minutes, add the chilli, then the squid, and cook 5 minutes.
4. Pour in the RED wine — red, not white, which is the other thing that marks this stew out — and let it reduce by half.
5. Add the passata and the strained broth and simmer 25 minutes, until the squid is tender.
6. Add the fish fillets and the mussels and cook 6 minutes more without stirring.
7. Rub the toast with the whole garlic cloves and put a slice in the bottom of each bowl. LADLE THE STEW OVER THE BREAD — it goes in the bowl, not on the side, and soaking it is the point rather than an accident.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Italy · All recipes