In some areas of Italy, soup is much more popular than pasta. For example, in the Tuscany region, almost every resident knows how to cook kachucco. This soup is traditionally cooked right away from several types of fish, which are many in the Ligurian Sea. It is believed that the more seafood in the dish, the richer its taste. We will talk about how to cook Tuscan soup in our article. At the very end, we will present two more first dishes that are popular in this region: with beans and shrimp and tomato-mashed soup with bread.
Cachucco - traditional Tuscan seafood soup
This dish is rightfully the most interesting in the Italian region of Tuscany. Originally kachucco was prepared from fish residues and scraps. Today it is believed that there should be at least five kinds of fish in the soup (by the number of letters “c” in the word cacciucco). The traditional recipe has as many as 13 marine inhabitants: shrimp, octopus, moray eel, shark, sea rooster, eel, mussels, lobster, goby, horse mackerel, sepia, sultanka, stone bass. However, most chefs are limited to 6-7 types of seafood.
There are two versions of the origin of this dish. According to one of them, the Tuscan soup was first prepared by the widow of the deceased fisherman, whose comrades shared with her what they could. The second version says that the dish was invented by the lighthouse keeper, who was forbidden to fry fish, since oil could be used exclusively as fuel for the lamp.
In the largest port of Tuscany, Livorno hosts the Cachucco Festival annually. Residents of the city are very proud of their world-famous soup.
Food Selection
The consistency of Tuscan soup is more like goulash. It is prepared from a mixture of fish stock and tomato sauce, to which sea delicacies are added. Some chefs additionally pour red wine into the soup, destroying the myth that exclusively white fish is served to the fish.
To prepare the dish, you must prepare the following ingredients in advance:
- fish fillet (smelt, dorado, cod, halibut, sea bass, tuna, sea bass, pike perch, tilapia, rasp) - 100 g each;
- seafood (cuttlefish, squid, scallop, mussels in the wings, boiled and peeled shrimps, crab meat, tiger prawns in shell) - 100 g each;
- carrots - 200 g;
- shallots - 200 g;
- garlic - 8 pcs.;
- leek - 1 pc.;
- celery - 1 pc.;
- hot peppers - 1 pc.;
- fennel - ¼ pcs.;
- Passat sauce - 1 can;
- tomatoes in their own juice - 200 g;
- salt to taste;
- basil greens.
All types of fish and seafood will need exactly 100 g. This amount will be enough to make the soup rich and very tasty. You can choose other seafood as you wish. If they are frozen, they must be transferred in advance from the freezer to the shelf of the refrigerator.
Additionally, for fish stock you will need:
- trout tails and heads - 600 g;
- onions - 150 g;
- carrots - 100 g;
- water - 3 l.
After the products are selected, you can proceed directly to the preparation of the first dish.
Cooking soup in stages
This dish is prepared quickly and easily. The only difficulty is to find and buy several types of sea delicacies at once, which must be of good quality.
The soup preparation process consists of the following steps:
- Fish broth. It is made from the remains of trout. To do this, the tails and heads of the fish are placed in a pan with the onion head and whole carrots and poured with cold water. The broth is cooked over low heat for 40 minutes, after which it is filtered through a sieve from bones.
- Passing vegetables for soup. For this dish, you must take several types of onions, fragrant fennel root and a juicy stalk of celery.
- Bookmark fish and seafood soup. They are cooked very quickly, after which the dish with the help of spices is brought to an ideal taste and served at the table.
Vegetable Soup Dressing
When the fish broth is already cooked and filtered, you can proceed to the second stage of cooking. Step by step it can be represented as follows:
- Peel and cut the carrots into small cubes.
- Crush the garlic with the flat side of the knife, and then chop it as much as possible.
- Finely chop the shallots, leek, fennel and celery stalk.
- Hot pepper cut into rings. If desired, the seeds can be extracted from the pod. Then the dish will turn out less spicy.
- Heat olive oil in a saucepan (75 ml).
- First, fry the carrots over medium heat. Then add shallots, peppers, fennel and garlic to it.
- After 10 minutes, shift the leeks and celery from the plate to the soft vegetables.
- After another 5 minutes, add tomatoes and trade wind sauce to the pan. You can buy it in a store or cook it yourself. At this stage, you can add red wine (1 tbsp.) To a vegetable dressing or skip it. The taste of the dish from this will turn out no less balanced.
It's all about fish!
After the vegetables in the tomato become soft enough (no need to be digested), filtered fish stock is poured into the pan. Now the dish becomes like a real Tuscan soup. At this stage, you need to salt it to taste.
At the last stage of cooking, seafood is placed in the tomato broth. First, cuttlefish, squid and scallop meat should be sent to the pan. Then a fish is laid , cut into pieces the size of a walnut. And after a minute, crab meat, mussels in the wings, shrimp are added to the pan. After 5 minutes, the soup will be ready. It should not be cooked for a long time, so that seafood does not become rubber.
Food Options
Tuscan soup made from tomatoes in its own juice, vegetables and a large number of fish and seafood is thick and rich. It can be served to the table not only as the first, but also as the second dish. Directly in a plate, it is recommended to sprinkle fish soup with fresh herbs of parsley or basil.
When serving, plate should be placed on each type of seafood, including cuttlefish, and mussels in the wings. Such a dish will become a real decoration of the festive table.
Italian Bean and Shrimp Soup
The following dish is no less popular in Tuscany. And the soup is prepared with shrimp and beans in the following sequence:
- Fold the canned beans (3 b.) In a colander so that the glass has excess liquid.
- Finely chop the onion and garlic (5-6 pcs.) And fry in a pan in olive oil (2 tbsp. L.). After 3-4 minutes add the tomato paste (¼ tbsp. L.), Red pepper flakes (1 tsp.) And dried oregano (2 tsp.). Stir the ingredients and cook another 2 minutes.
- Grind canned tomatoes (900 g) and add together with beans in a pan to vegetable frying. Pour 1.5 liters of chicken stock. Salt and pepper the soup, then continue cooking for another 25 minutes.
- At this time, you can do shrimp. Melt the butter in a pan. Put chopped parsley and shrimp in it. Fry them on both sides for 3-4 minutes, and a little salt at the very end of cooking.
- Break kale (kale) with your hands into slices and, together with basil leaves, send to the pan with the first dish. After 5 minutes, remove the Tuscan soup from the heat. According to the recipe, shrimps are not immediately added to it, but laid out directly on plates.
- Sprinkle each portion of the dish with grated cheese.
Tuscan Tomato Puree Soup with Bread
It is not difficult to prepare such a dish:
- Pour olive oil (4 tbsp.) Into a saucepan, heat and fry onion, garlic (3 cloves) and fresh basil leaves on it.
- After 7 minutes add sliced zucchini (300 g) and tomatoes (1 kg).
- Pour 1 liter of meat or chicken broth into a saucepan with vegetables, add salt, pepper and cook soup over low heat for 20 minutes.
- Break the stale loaf or ciabatta (300 g) with your hands into pieces. Add to soup and cook for 2-3 minutes. A few pieces, if desired, can be left to decorate dishes in a plate.
- Remove pan from heat. With a submersible blender, grind all the ingredients into a homogeneous mass. The result should be Tuscan soup puree of tomatoes and zucchini. Pour the dish into plates. Put a few slices of bread or crackers in the center.