Guest Recipe: Seafood Broth from Graeme Taylor

Guest Recipe from Graeme Taylor of Scots Larder, and also found on Twitter as @scotslarder

———————————————

I love seafood, you can’t beat it for freshness, flavour and for sheer enjoyment of experimentation and it goes so well with so many ingredients, it complements chorizo, and the fresh herbs and white wine make it zing. It’s also great to watch everyone get messy as they wrestle with heads, tails, claws and shells!

I threw this soup together with what I found available in the fishmonger and supermarket but really it’s all about experimenting with what’s available and in season.

I made my own stock using the bones from the gurnard with stock vegetables but you could use a cube if heads and bones offend you or even a shop bought pot of stock, many fishmongers do excellent ones. I just don’t like to see flavour going in the bin so made my own.

This will serve 4

Ingredients

1 Gurnard filleted and chopped into bitesize chunks
100g clams
100g squid chopped into rings
Dozen mussels
150g king prawns
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 tin cannellini beans
50g chorizo piccante finely chopped
2 shallots finely chopped
Splash white wine (just a splash, not a sploosh, there’s a big difference!)
Tiny splash sherry vinegar (maybe 1tsp)
Dessertspoon finely chopped dill
2 small ladels fish stock

Method

1. In a medium pot sweat the chorizo in a little olive oil until it begins to give up it’s colour then add the shallots and cook slowly until soft.
2. Add the gurnard and coat in the orangey oil to brown a little and then add the tomatoes.
3. Add the sherry vinegar and beans and bring to a slow simmer.
4. Meanwhile clean and de-beard the mussels and clams making sure you discard any dead ones. The end of this recipe is all about timing, nobody wants cold or overcooked seafood.
5. When you’re happy with the flavour and consistency of the soup, probably around 15 minutes, put a little olive oil in the bottom of a hot pan and then add the mussels, clams and white wine, cover and set timer for 4 minutes.
6. Add the prawns to the soup and give the shellfish pot a shake but don’t take off the lid or the cooking steam will all be lost.
7. When the buzzer goes drain the shellfish pot into the soup to get all the flavour the clams and mussels have given up along with the white wine.
8. At this point put the squid into the soup as any more than two minutes will render it elastic band like!
9. Take the mussels and clams from their shells except a couple for decoration (not essential unless you’d like to impress somebody!) and add to the soup.
10. Take off the heat, stir through the dill, correct for seasoning and serve in warmed bowls with a huge chunk of Guinness soda bread.