Italian Fish Soup or Zuppa Di Pesce.

When almost every province of Italy has a coast, it is not

surprising that there are many variations of that soup.

To make the Zuppa Di Pesce you will need: fish balls and

trimmings, carrot and onion paysanne, roughly chopped parsley,

bay leaves, shrimp, squid, white fish today I'm using cod,

chopped garlic, olive oil, white wine, cayenne pepper, diced

tomato canned or fresh, fresh clams, scallops, garlic, bread,

mussels, small paysanne of carrot, onion and celery,

small paysanne of fennel.

Our first step is to make the broth.

Place all the vegetables in a pot.

These are the vegetables for the broth not for the soup.

Add the trimmings.

Make sure you wash them thoroughly

and remove any blood that you may find.

Then cover with water, about six cups. [pouring sounds]

Great. Then turn it on. Give it a stir.

Bring to a boil

and we're going to simmer the broth for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile we are going to prepare the squid and the shrimp.

When you clean the scallops you must remove the little muscle,

which is on the side of the scallop itself.

This little muscle when the scallops are cooking will bring some

tension and stress on the scallop itself making it tough.

So you must take it off, just like so.

Add the trimmings to the broth.

And keep your scallops in the fridge.

Let's clean the squid.

You may buy squid fresh or frozen.

So just separate the head from the body, just pull. Great.

Then put your finger in the tube and pick up the intestine,

the bone and you see the black skin, you have to pick it up.

So just peel it off, just like so. There we go.

It looks like a black membrane.

So remove all the skin. It's sticky.

Then make sure there's nothing in the tube.

You see there's more.

And for the head, you see the eyes,

so usually I cut just after the eyes.

Okay, I don't use that.

And this is delicious, the tentacles.

So prepare all your squid like that.

So those are baby squids.

Put your finger in there. There we go.

[scraping sounds]

Our broth is boiling.

We're going to turn it down to medium high for about 20 minutes.

Add the squid trimmings.

Clean the shrimp.

Separate the head from the body.

Peel them. Remove all the shells.

And then remove the vein.

So, from the tail side on the back make a cut towards

the head side and pick up that vein here. Okay.

[peeling sounds]

Keep your shrimp refrigerated.

Add the prawn shells to the broth.

And give it a stir.

Cut the fish in small cubes about half an inch.

Make sure there is no bone on your fish.

If there is any, pull them out and add them to the broth.

There we go.

In the choice of the fish

you want to have something a little bit firm.

You don't want a fish that will fall apart when it's cooked,

so cod, sablefish, halibut and monkfish

are great fish for the soup.

Skim off the broth and the impurities. There we go.

Sometimes it's easier to just bring them to the outside.

So I'm using a skimmer.

Our seafood is in the fridge.

We've been just working on the broth so far.

Now it's time to make the soup.

Heat a pot on medium high.

Add the oil, the paysanne of vegetables, the garlic.

Stir.

I am going to add the cayenne pepper too.

The cayenne pepper is to season, so about half a teaspoon.

A little bit more. Here we go.

Mix well and sweat the vegetables for about six to eight minutes

without browning them.

The vegetables have been sweating for about seven minutes.

Let's add the wine and the tomatoes.

Stir well.

Place a sieve over and we are going to strain the broth over.

There we go.

Mix well again.

Make sure all the ingredients are covered by the liquid.

Bring it to a boil on high heat.

Then we will simmer it for about 20 minutes.

The soup has been simmering for about 20 minutes.

Let's taste it.

I'm going to work on the seasoning now.

Mm. Very nice.

A little bit of salt. A good pinch. There we go.

A good pinch of pepper. There we go.

And I'm going to put a little bit more cayenne pepper

because I like the spiciness of it. There we go.

It's time for us to cook the seafood, so start with the fish.

Put it for about five minutes

then we will add the rest of the seafood.

We are going to clean our mussels and clams.

[running water] Clean them.

And let's clean the mussels.

For the mussels make sure there is no beard. There we go.

Like this, there is one. Pick it up.

Make the crostini.

Crush the garlic. There we go.

You can chop it a little bit if you want. Good.

And let's go to the stove.

The fish is done.

So now we're going to add the squid, the shrimp, and

the scallops and the mussels and clams.

Mix well.

Bring it to a boil and simmer another five minutes.

Heat a tablespoon of olive oil. Add the garlic, roughly crushed.

And cook the bread until golden on both sides.

Okay. Stir.

The bread smells wonderful.

Little more. Another tablespoon. There we go.

Great. Perfect. Beautiful.

Taste the soup one more time.

Little bit of pepper.

So rectify the seasoning, salt, pepper or cayenne pepper.

Wonderful. Let's plate the soup.

Place a crostini on the bottom of the bowl

then serve the soup over.

So make sure you get plenty of seafood.

Great. Mm. Very nice.

Then garnish with parsley leaves, so small ones.

There we go. Just a few here and there.

Clean the bowl.

Et voila zuppa di pesce or Italian fish soup.

Bon Appetit.