The lengthy ingredient list here speaks for the vibrancy of Creole food and the melting pot of cultures it incorporates; but don’t let that fool you into thinking this is complicated. This is one-pot cooking at its best – inviting, colourful and relaxed, and the serving style should roughly follow suit; just pop a pan of this on the table with chunks of crusty bread and let everyone dig in. A welcoming warmth from the cayenne adds authenticity, but the heat shouldn’t be so far up the Scoville scale that it distracts from the delicate taste of the seafood. By the way, don’t worry about spending lots of money on expensive fresh crab meat canned is fine as it will happily disperse itself into the soup base and provide a deep ambient shellfishy flavour.
Ingredients
- 2 Tbsp oil
- 1 Tbsp butter
- 1 large onion, finely diced
- 2 celery sticks, finely sliced
- 3 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 1 red [bell] pepper, diced
- 1 green [bell] pepper, diced
- 1 litre [4¼ cups] fish stock
- ¾ cup (200 ml) passata [strained tomatoes]
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 tsp cayenne pepper (or more to taste)
- 1 tsp sweet smoked paprika (pimentón dulce)
- ½ tsp black peppercorns, ground in a pestle and mortar
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- 9 oz (250 g) fresh tomatoes, cut into chunks
- 10½ oz (300 g) white fish, such as cod, cut into 2.5 cm [1 in] chunks
- 7 oz (200 g) large prawns [shrimp], shelled weight (keep the shells for stock)
- 6 oz (1 x 170 g) can lump crab meat
- fresh crusty bread, to serve
- Heat the oil and butter in a large saucepan over medium–low heat and sweat the onion and celery for 7–8 minutes until well softened. Add the garlic and peppers and continue to cook for a few minutes more until softened.
- Add the stock, passata, bay leaf, spices and dried herbs and cook for about 15 minutes until all the vegetables are tender. Add the tomatoes and cook for about 3 minutes, then add the all the fish and cook for another 3 minutes or until the fish is just cooked.
- Ladle the soup into 4 shallow bowls, being careful to divide the lumps of fish and prawns reasonably evenly, and enjoy with fresh crusty bread, to mop up all the juices.
