Name: Zuppa di Pesce (Fish Soup)
Yield: Serves 4
Cuisine: Italy
Ingredients: fish fillets; 4–6 large prawns; 125 ml (4 fl oz/½ cup) white wine; 1 celery stalk with leaves, halved; 1 dried bay leaf about 8 peppercorns; 1 large carrot, peeled & halved; 1 large garlic clove, peeled; 1 teaspoon salt; 4 tablespoons olive oil, plus 2 extra; 1 bunch parsley; 1 garlic clove, peeled; 3–4 whole small fish, weighing a total of 800 g (1 lb 12 oz); 2 tablespoons cognac or brandy; a little flour; 1 small white onion, finely chopped; olive oil, for drizzling; a pinch of dried peperoncino; 4 slices country bread with crusts, roughly cut into 2–3 cm (1 inch) pieces; 250 g (9 oz/1 cup) roughly puréed tinned or peeled fresh tomatoes; 2 garlic cloves, chopped; 1 white onion, peeled; 1 tablespoon chopped parsley, plus a little extra; 1 small carrot, very thinly sliced slightly on the diagonal

Preparation info

Serves
4

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Venezia

By Tessa Kiros

Published 2008

About

When making the broth for this soup, it’s worth seeking out cicale – a mantis shrimp popular in Venice that is known to make a lovely broth. However, if you can’t get cicale then use an extra couple of large prawns, leaving these ones whole to add their flavour to the broth. You can also freeze any leftover brodo & use later as the base for a lovely plain risotto.

Use small whole fish for the broth… I like to use different types for their flavour – scorfani (scorpion fish), gall