SPAIN'S FLAVORFUL SEAFOOD SOUPS

Suquet--a Barcelona fisherman's soup.

In my story in today’s Los Angeles Times food pages I take you on a seafood soup tour round the coastlines of Spain. Read the article and recipes here http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-spanish-soups-20120512,0,5951228.story. Then, read on for a recipe that didn't appear in that article.

With more than 3000 miles of coastline, it’s no wonder Spain has such a variety of seafood soups. Spain occupies most of the Iberian peninsula, surrounded by oceans—clockwise from the top, the Atlantic, the Cantabrian Sea and the Bay of Biscay, where Spain curves around to meet France. Skip across the land border with France, connecting Spain to the European continent, and you arrive on the Mediterranean coasts, stretching all the way from the French border (and not so distant from bouillabaisse country) to the Straits of Gibraltar.

Fishing boat on a Mediterranean beach.

Pass through the Straits and you are back to the Atlantic Ocean. (Portugal—no slouch when it comes to seafood soups—occupies much of the western coast of the Iberian peninsula.) Two Spanish archipelagos, the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean between Spain and Italy, and the Canary Islands, in the Atlantic, off the coast of Morocco, contribute to Spain’s mix of seafaring soups.

Space limitations meant that one of my favorite seafood soup recipes didn’t make the cut in the LA Times —the fabulous suquet of Barcelona. So, here’s that recipe.

In Barcelona, on the Mediterranean, in the old Barceloneta fishing port, is a restaurant called El Suquet de L’Amirall. Here, chef/proprietor Quim Marqués, interprets the traditional dishes of fishermen and fishermen’s wives.

The name of the restaurant, “suquet,” comes from the best-known Barcelona fish soup. In his book about the seafaring cuisine of Barcelona, La Cocina de la Barcelona Marinera, Quim explains that suquet was typically made on board fishing boats when the catch was abundant.

The secret to suquet is the picada, a mixture of crushed garlic, parsley and almonds that is stirred into the broth. A lightly aromatic stock in which to cook the fish and a dollop of alioli, garlic mayonnaise, to serve it turn this Barcelona dish into one of the best seafood soups in the world.

What fish to use? Monkfish works really well because it's sweet and flavorful and won't disintegrate in cooking. Halibut or cod could be used as well, or, experiment with other white fish.

Suquet is flavored with a picada of crushed almonds and garlic.

Suquet del Pescador
Barcelona Fisherman’s Soup

For the stock:

1 to 2 pounds small fish, cuttlefish or squid, fish heads and trimmings, crustacean shells, small crabs, etc.
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, coarsely chopped
1 leek, sliced
1 carrot, sliced
1 stalk celery, sliced
1 clove garlic, chopped
2 cups chopped tomatoes
2 teaspoons salt
1 bay leaf
parsley stems
freshly ground black pepper
10 cups water

Heat the oil in a large soup pot. Sauté the onion, leek, carrot, celery and garlic on a medium-high heat until onion is golden. Add crustaceans, such as shrimp heads and shells and sauté on high heat. Add the tomatoes and continue to fry and stir on a medium-high heat until tomato is reduced and beginning to brown.

Add remaining fish, heads and trimmings, salt, bay leaf, lemon, parsley, pepper and water. Bring to a boil, skim off the froth that rises to the top and reduce heat so liquid bubbles gently. Cover and cook for 45 minutes.

Allow to cool for 15 minutes, then strain the stock. Press on the solids to extract all the liquid. Any bits of cooked fish or cuttlefish, without bones, can be picked out and saved to add to soup, if desired.

Makes about 8 cups of stock. Stock can be kept, refrigerated, up to two days or frozen for up to two months.

For the almond picada:

2 tablespoons olive oil
½ cup almonds, blanched and skinned
2 cloves garlic
1 slice bread, crusts removed
¼ cup parsley leaves

Heat the oil in a small skillet. Fry the almonds, garlic and bread, turning, until lightly browned on all sides. Remove and cool briefly.

Grind the almonds, garlic, bread and parsley, along with any remaining oil, in a mortar or in a mini food processor. The picada is ready to add to soup or stew.

For the alioli (garlic mayonnaise):

A dollop of garlic mayonnaise to serve.

2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 egg, at room temperature
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice or vinegar

Put the garlic and egg in a blender and pulse until garlic is finely chopped. With the motor running, pour in the oil in a slow trickle, allowing it to be absorbed by the egg before adding more. Blend in all the oil. The sauce will emulsify and thicken. Blend in the salt and lemon juice.

The sauce will keep, refrigerated, for up to 2 days.

Makes 1 cup of sauce.


For the fish soup:

2 tomatoes
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 medium potatoes (such as russets), about 1 pound 6 ounces, peeled and sliced ¼-inch thick
almond picada (recipe above)
4 cups fish stock (recipe above)
1/3 cup dry white wine
1 ½ pounds monkfish fillets, cut into chunks
½ pound small clams (such as Manila)
¼ pound peeled shrimp
salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons alioli garlic mayonnaise (recipe above)

Cut the tomatoes in half and remove core. Use the coarse side of a box grater to grate the tomatoes. Discard the skins.

Heat the oil in a wide pot or deep skillet. Add the tomato pulp and fry on a medium-high heat until it turns darker in color. Add the sliced potatoes, the almond picada and the fish stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, covered, until potatoes are almost tender, 15 minutes.

Add the wine, chunks of fish and clams. Bring to a boil, then simmer, uncovered, until potatoes and fish are cooked and clam shells opened, 10 minutes. Add the shrimp and season with salt and pepper. Cook another 2 minutes, or until shrimp are cooked.

Place alioli in a small bowl and stir in 1/2 cup of the hot soup to thin it. Stir the alioli into the soup immediately before serving.

Serves 4 as a main course.

WHAT I ATE IN BARCELONA

Thick slabs of grilled bread, tomatoes, cloves of garlic, extra virgin olive oil, a rough wooden board—this was the starting point for almost every meal I ate in Barcelona, the makings of pa amb tomàquet, simply, bread with tomato.

The bread has substance, but it’s not a dense-crumbed loaf. We cut the tomatoes in half and scrubbed them onto the bread. “Start on the crisp outside edges of the bread,” said my dining coach, a Catalan native. “That starts to break up the tomato so the pulp is released.”  Garlic is optional, but almost everybody at the table rubbed the toasted slices with cut garlic as well. Then the crowning glory, plenty of extra virgin olive oil, preferably a fruity Arbequina oil from Catalonia.

We were dining at a rustico restaurant called La Parra (the grapevine), so the bread and tomato were presented for us to prepare ourselves. In some restaurants and tapa bars, the toast comes already spread with tomato and oil.

We proceeded through several more seasonal and traditional foods. Spring marks the end of the calçots season, so I was lucky to be able to sample this traditional Catalan party food. Calçots are chunky spring onions with long green tops that are grilled over grapevine prunings until the outer skins are charred and blackened. One of my dinner companions showed me how to eat them: use your fingers to pinch off the root end and peel back the charred layers. Hold the onion by the green tail and dip the white part into romesco or alioli sauce, tip back your head and chomp off bites of the onion. Tasty. A Catalan friend later told me that you shouldn’t eat calçots at night, as eating too many causes gasiness. 

Next followed escalibada, a mixed grill of peppers, onions and eggplant dressed with olive oil; whole artichokes; morels in cream as well as a sauté of mixed wild mushrooms. Then, a massive chuletón, “chop” of Charlolais beef, grilled to rare perfection and sliced off the bone. All this was washed down with a fine red from the MontSant wine district. I passed on the desserts, coffee, brandy that followed. What a feast! 

Taverna La Parra; Joanot Martorell, 3; Barcelona. Tel.: 933 325 134.

One evening, too early for dinner, we stopped for a bite, a tapa, at Dos Palillos—two chopsticks—a small Asian-Catalan bar-restaurant a couple blocks off La Rambla. Albert Raurich is the chef. He spent 11 years working with Ferran Adrià at El Bulli, before branching out on his own. The Vietnamese rice paper roll filled with shattery-crisp fried chicken skin was sensational. 

Dos Palillos; Elisabets, 9; Barcelona. Tel.: 933 040 513.

Right on the beach, in the fishermen’s barrio of La Barceloneta, is Restaurant Can Majó serving—what else?—fabulous seafood as well as rice dishes such as paella. Here, the pan catalán, toasted bread, arrived at the table already spread with tomato and olive oil. One dinner companion, Jeffrey Steingarten, who knows what’s good (he is food critic for Vogue and author of The Man Who Ate Everything), asked for some anchovies in olive oil to top the toasts. Perfect.  

Four of us shared plates of shrimp (peel ‘em yourself, suck the heads); griddled razor clams (my favorite), and tiny wedge-shell clams marinera style, with olive oil, garlic and parsley.

Then we split an order of shellfish paella and another of arros negre, black rice, served with garlicky alioli sauce. Seafood stock gives the rice enormous depth of flavor. (Purists tell me that you don’t eat rice at night either, but, hey, how often do I get to Barcelona?) I did skip the mandarin mousse for dessert. We finished with an elegant cava, Kripta Gran Reserva from Agustí Torelló. 

Restaurant Can Majó; Almirall Aixada, 23, La Barceloneta, Barcelona. Tel.: 932 215 455.

I had my doubts about a restaurant at the top of a tower. But, in chef Oscar Manresa’s tower, Restaurant Torre d’Alta Mar, not only were the views amazing, but so was the food. The restaurant is situated atop a cable-car pylon (during daylight hours, red cable cars swing across the water to the Montjuic mountain), with 360º views of the old harbor, open seas and the city of Barcelona. By day the sun sparkles on the water; by night, lights twinkle all around. (Smokers, take note—it’s a long way down for a cigarette.)

We started with cava—Catalan bubbly being the perfect pre- or post-prandial drink—to accompany crunchy, cheesy breadsticks and gorgonzola with membrillo, quince paste. The multiple-course tasting menu that followed showed Chef Oscar’s wit and skill in transforming traditional Catalan dishes into fresh, contemporary ones. A case in point: coca de recapte. Coca is a flat bread with sweet or savory (often sausage) toppings, the Catalan version of pizza. This rendition was a shatteringly-crisp wafer heaped with micro-greens (at long last, salad!), Garrotxa goat’s cheese, and summer truffle.

We continued with scallops with artichoke, potato, asparagus, parmesan and ibérico ham; creamy rice with shrimp, punctuated by morsels of tangy-sweet confit of sun-dried tomatoes; and hake (“rich man’s cod,” said Jeffrey Steingarten) with artichokes, beans and mushroom broth. The main dish was succulent loin of baby goat rolled around a stuffing of foie gras, wild mushrooms and truffle. (Jeffrey had the chef drawing pictures of a goat, in order to pinpoint the cut of the meat.)

I couldn’t resist sampling the version of crema catalana, custard with burnt-sugar topping.  Chef Oscar turned it upside down, with a caramel gelée under the creamy custard and a streusel topping for crunch. And, more cava to finish a festive dinner.
Restaurant Torre d’Alta Mar; Psg. Joan de Borbó 88, Barcelona. Tel.: 932 210 007.

On my last day in Barcelona, friends took me for breakfast to Granja M. Viader, just a few steps from the great Boqueria market (read about the market here). Hot chocolate thick enough to stand a spoon in; hand-whipped cream from the owner’s dairy farm (granja is farm); mel i mató, honey and fresh cheese, plus luscious-looking pastries were some of the tempting choices.
Granja M. Viader; Xuclà, 4-6, Barcelona. Tel.: 933 183 486.

And, a last lunch—at Casa Alfonso, a brasserie sort of restaurant. More Catalan toasts, then salad with croquettes and, my favorite dish, artichokes, sliced and fried crisp with nothing but coarse salt. Wonderful finale before returning to southern Spain.

Casa Alfonso; Roger de Lluria, 6, Barcelona. Tel.: 933 019 783.

Pan Catalán
Catalan Toasts

The Catalans call this pa amb tomàquet, but elsewhere in Spain it’s known as “Catalan toasts.” Serve it for breakfast with café con leche or as a tapa with wine. At its best, the toasts are prepared individually—the bread toasted over a wood fire, then rubbed with a cut tomato to impregnate it with the juices. But if you’re serving a party, toast the bread under the broiler and prepare the tomato pulp in advance.

Serves 8.

8 thick slices country bread
2 ripe tomatoes
2 cloves garlic, cut in half
extra virgin olive oil
thinly sliced serrano or ibérico ham (optional)
anchovies in olive oil (optional)

Toast the bread under a broiler, over a wood fire or in the toaster. Cut the tomato in half crosswise and grate it coarsely, discarding the skin. Rub each toast with a cut clove of garlic and spread the tomato pulp on top. Drizzle each with  oil. Arrange sliced ham or anchovies on top. Serve immediately.