Spain’s flavorful seafood soup

At the village market, my friend Pepa buys a couple of small white fish, a handful of clams, a few shrimp. I ask what she’s preparing. “Una sopa marinera, de pescado,” she replies. A fish soup. Nothing fancy, no complications, just a simple home-style fish soup, ready in minutes.

In Spanish, “marinera” has nothing to do with tomato sauce — it means mariner’s style, fishermen’s fare. These seafood soups are traditional aboard fishing boats or in fishermen’s homes, where the remains of the day’s catch find their way into the soup pot. From the village where Pepa and I shop, we look down to the Mediterranean coast, where a fishing port receives fresh seafood daily.

Many fish soups are as simple as the one Pepa was making — fresh fish boiled briefly, strained and flaked, then the broth flavored with olive oil, garlic and pimentón to serve over slices of sturdy bread with the bits of fish. Others get flavor from an unusual ingredient, such as the juice of sour oranges, crushed nuts or a dash of sherry.

Spain is a country with more than 3,000 miles of coastline. From the wild Atlantic coast of Galicia to the craggy shore of the Bay of Biscay of the Basque country; from the bustling ports of Barcelona to the Mediterranean coast of Málaga come superb seafood soups.

In Galicia, in the northwestern corner of Spain, best-known in the U.S. for its Albariño wines, is Finisterre, the end of the world, nearly the last stop before America. The most typical fisherman’s stew of Galicia and neighboring Asturias is caldeirada or caldereta , originally made aboard fishing boats by boiling potatoes in clean seawater with pieces of the day’s catch. A simple ajada, a sauce of olive oil, garlic, pimentón and a splash of vinegar, enlivens the boiled fish, potatoes and broth.

The Basque country also has simple home-style soups, such as zurrucutuna, a garlic soup thickened with bread, embellished with salt cod and finished with poached egg. But there are also soups that are more refined. Sopa de pescados y mariscos a la vasca, for example, requires making a fish stock, then sautéeing each fish in olive oil before adding it to the soup, but it’s worth the effort.

Following the Mediterranean coast south, you enter the large region known as Andalusia, where olive oil and fish are the starting points for several distinctive soups. Gazpachuelo, with obvious roots in gazpacho, is thickened with an olive oil and egg emulsion. The simple version contains bits of fish and potatoes, but more elaborate versions, sometimes called sopa Viña AB, for a type of dry sherry added to it, contain chunks of fish, shrimp, ham, potatoes and peas.

In Spain, monkfish, a fish with an enormous, ugly head and sweet, bone-free flesh, is much favored for soup. The head goes into the stock pot and the firm flesh goes into the soup. In the U.S., use any white fish — monkfish, halibut, rock cod, pollock, barramundi, croaker, lingcod or white seabass. Squid and cuttlefish add much flavor to a stock and, once cooked, can be added to the soup as well. Shrimp and other crustaceans add to a soup’s flavor. Clams are allowed to open right in the soup. They make a little clatter as the soup is ladled into bowls. Even in the best restaurants, you have to get your fingers into the soup to eat them.

That’s how to dine à la marinera.

Mendel is the author of five books on Spanish cooking, and she blogs at My Kitchen in Spain.

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Basque Seafood Soup

Total time: 2 hours, 10 minutes

Servings: 6

Note: Crustacean shells (shrimp, lobster or crab) give this soup real depth of flavor, so, if possible, choose shrimp with heads and shells.

1 pound whole, small shrimp

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided

2 leeks, chopped

1 onion, chopped

1 carrot, chopped

1/4 cup brandy

1/2 cup white wine

8 cups simple fish stock, divided

1 cup diced tomatoes

Pinch of ground cayenne pepper

Salt to taste

Pinch of crushed saffron threads

2 slices toasted bread, broken into pieces

1 1/2 pounds boneless monkfish, cut into 1-inch pieces and/or lobster chunks

1/2 pound Manila or littleneck clams (or ¼ cup shucked clams)

Chopped parsley to garnish

1. Peel the shrimp and reserve them. Keep the heads and shells.

2. In a large, heavy-bottomed soup pot, heat one-fourth cup of oil over high heat until hot. Sauté the leeks, onion and carrot for 5 minutes to soften, stirring frequently. Add the shrimp shells and heads and continue sautéing, stirring frequently, until the contents begin to brown. Remove from heat.

3. Add the brandy. Using a long match, carefully light the brandy on fire and flambé the mixture until flames subside. Add the wine, 1 cup of the fish stock, the tomatoes, cayenne, saffron and salt to taste. Loosely cover the pot and gently cook the mixture for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally (be sure to scrape the bottom of the pot while stirring to keep the mixture from burning).

4. Add the toasted bread and cook 10 more minutes.

5. Place the contents of the pot in a food processor or blender and grind as smoothly as possible. Press the pulp through a sieve, discarding the remains of shrimp shells.

6. Place the pulp in the pot, and whisk in the remaining fish stock. Bring to a boil, then loosely cover and gently simmer for 45 minutes. (The soup can be prepared in advance up to this point; cool then cover and refrigerate, and reheat before proceeding.)

7. Shortly before serving time, heat the remaining 2 tablespoons oil in a skillet. Sauté the chunks of monkfish or lobster quickly, then add them to the gently simmering soup. Add the washed clams to the soup as well. Cook until the fish is cooked through, about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, sauté the peeled shrimp and add to the soup. Taste again and season if desired. Continue to cook until shrimp are curled and clam shells are opened, about 3 minutes. This makes a generous 3 quarts of soup. Serve hot, garnished with chopped parsley.

Each serving: 429 calories; 40 grams protein; 14 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams fiber; 19 grams fat; 3 grams saturated fat; 157 mg cholesterol; 4 grams sugar; 1,856 mg sodium.

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