Fish and seafood soup with olive oil

What could be better on a Christmas menu than a starter of delicious soup or cream? The benefits of soups are well recognized, but during the holidays, they offer an additional benefit: they allow us to enjoy the rest of the dinner without going beyond.

Without going any further, the basis of a good soup is a fish broth or fish fumet, with its vegetables and fish bones, with an addition of seafood if the budget allows it.

For the preparation of this dish, you can use all kinds of seafood and fish, the more ingredients you use the more intense the flavor and aroma of the resulting soup will be. This can be achieved in two phases, where the first one consists of making a fumet with the heads and shells of the seafood (shrimps, prawns, crayfish, etc.) plus the bones, monkfish bones, etc., depending on the fish we are going to use. If you are going to use fish heads, consider that you must previously eliminate the eyes and the gills since they do not give good flavor to the fumet.

The second part consists of making a sauce and adding the slices of toasted bread to which we will add the fumet and that gives the soup a more full-bodied broth, which is what we are looking for.

Preparation method

As the first step, you should prepare the fumet, and after, we can get our hands on the soup. In this way, we will achieve a richer taste.

1. Peel the seafood and reserve the heads and shells. Cut the fish into pieces of matching size and reserve the bones of the monkfish. In a plate we leave the chopped fish and the shrimp tails also chopped, except for the whole ones that we will use as decoration of the dish.
2. Sauté the heads, shells, etc. with 2 or 3 tablespoons of olive oil from Spain in a saucepan. The seafood changes color immediately, and at that moment, over high heat, we add a good splash of brandy or cognac.
3. Wait a couple of minutes for the alcohol to evaporate and cover with water (approximately 2 liters). It takes around 15 minutes for a fumet to be ready.
4. In the meantime, in another pot, fry the chopped garlic clove and the chopped onion.
5. When the onion is transparent, add the grated or chopped tomato without the skin, season with a pinch of salt and sugar and let it simmer for a few minutes (5 or 6 minutes).
6. Toast the bread slices and add them to the sofrito. This is important because it is what is going to give body to the soup, for me the bread is essential.
7. Sauté the fried sauce with the toasted bread and break it with a spoon a little.
8. Next add the fumet that we will pass through a strainer. It is interesting to crush the shrimp heads in the strainer so that they release all that is left inside, and we do not lose any flavor.
9. This broth with the sauce and the bread should cook over medium heat for another 15 or 20 minutes, is enough. Now we separate it from the fire for a moment and we blend the broth.
10. Put the crushed broth back on the heat and to finish the soup, add the chopped fish and the seafood. Let it boil for 6 to 8 minutes, no more, and this wonderful soup is ready.
11. Before serving, check the salt and adjust if necessary. A touch of green goes very well, either fresh chopped parsley or chives, or something similar.