KFA KITCHEN - SEAFOOD SOUP (INSPIRED)

I don’t tend to divulge in the art of cooking very often due to my partner Claries wonderful culinary skills. Sometimes I get inspired to oil a pan but it usually takes some sort of exciting ingredient or someone elses passion to get my pot on. Lately it’s been a bit of both, accompanied by some serious cravings. When it starts to cool down in Canberra I get a hankering for some hearty meals, heavy soups and heavy servings. I watched a couple prepare a fish stew on a TV show recently an immediately wanted to prepare my own.

I searched the internet and found various recipes but decided to omit cream and start searching for a more structured soup that involved seafood. The result was a trip to a website that showed a video of Chef Guy Grossi cooking up a stew styled soup, followed by a recipe that could easily be altered. This recipe is not my own, perhaps only slightly hybrid but worth sharing none the less. Please note the recipe has a serving size of four but depending on your own take could serve just yourself.

Ingredients:

Salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper, to taste 2 cloves garlic, chopped 1 onion, chopped 2 sticks celery, chopped 1 tbs fresh basil, chopped 1 tbs dill, chopped 2 tbs fresh coriander, washed and chopped 4 tbs tomato paste 1 cup white wine 4 tbs olive oil 2 litres fish stock 8 fresh prawns, cleaned with heads and tails intact 2 Blue Swimmer Crabs 12 fresh scallops 1 fresh tube calamari, sliced thickly 8 fresh mussels 1/2 cup fresh parsley, finely chopped

1. Heat a pan on a moderate heat. Add olive oil and sweat off garlic and chopped onion with the chopped carrot, celery, salt, pepper and herbs. Add the tomato paste and cook out well until the tomato paste has darkened a little. Next, add the white wine and reduce by half. Add fish stock and simmer for 20 minutes. In a large deep frying pan or pot, add crab, prawns, mussels, scallops and finally calamari.


2. Gently stir crab and other shellfish through the soup and season with salt and pepper. Allow soup to simmer until the crab has cooked through. Add chopped parsley before serving and serve with a slice of bruschetta in a large bowl.

KFA Kitchen tips:

• Omit fish or add an oiler species like Mackerel. In our dish we used Crab, cut in half and washed thoroughly. Add more delicate seafood last when cooking. Ingredients like Chilli would work extremely well, so would Potatoes like Desiree or Pontiacs. Alternative Species: Freshwater Species