Cacciucco

The iconic Tuscan fish soup

One of the most iconic dishes in Tuscan cookery, cacciucco is a fish soup made in the costal areas of Tuscany, most famously in and around the port city of Livorno.  Like many Italian fish "soups", cacciucco is really more of a stew, made from a large variety of fish, mollusks and crustaceans. Tradition has it there should be at least five types of seafood, one for each "c" in cacciucco. Truth be told, there's no need to fuss too much about the specific number, but variety is at the heart of a good cacciucco.  Also like other fish soups, the seafood is cooked in a tomato-tinged broth. You start with a soffritto or flavor base of garlic, sage and hot red pepper briefly sautéed in lots of olive oil. The seafood is then simmered in stages: the first to go into the pot are the mollusks like octopus and squid that need fairly long cooking. Then in go the fish, cut into chunks, to simmer for a few minutes, and finally the delicate seafood that needs only a couple of minutes cooking right before serving, typically a crustacean like shrimp and sometimes a bivalve like mussels.  It has to be said that, strictly speaking, it's very challenging if not impossible to make a proper cacciucco outside the Mediterranean basin. For example, where I live I can't find those small bony (but super-flavorful) fishes typical of cacciucco and so many other Mediterranean fish soups that the Italians call pesce da zuppa or "fish for soup". Indeed, they say the very name "cacciucco" is a corruption of the Turkish word küçük, which means "small", a reference to the small fish used in making it.  That said, you can make an excellent fish soup in the spirit of cacciucco with whatever fish and other seafood you can find where you live. After all, they say fish soups were originally a way for fishermen to use up the unsold odds and ends of their daily catch. (You can find some suggestions for substitutions in the Notes to today's blog post.) While it might not be 100% "DOC", your ersatz cacciucco will be perfectly delicious. For the recipe, click on the image above or the "Read More" button below. And don't forget to leave a like or a comment. We love hearing from you! Happy cooking! Frank READ MORE You might also like ...  Cacciucco di ceci Not a fish lover? This vegetarian version of cacciucco made with chickpeas and Swiss chard (also known as ceci in zimino) is super-tasty and very healthy indeed. And if you use canned chickpeas, which I do without hesitation, it's also very quick to make. A great choice for a last minute meal. For the recipe, just click on the image above. Zuppa di pesce alla napoletana    And here's how they make fish soup down Naples way: The Neapolitan zuppa di pesce is perhaps the simplest and purest of all the fish soups in Italian cookery. It's nothing more than a variety of seafood simmered briefly in a simple marinara sauce. But don't let the simplicity fool you—the taste of this dish is incredible. For the recipe, just click on the image above. Peposo  And for you landlubbers out there, here's a fine ancient Tuscan beef stew. The story goes that it was invented by the furnace workers who baked the terracotta tiles for the Brunelleschi's famous Duomo in Florence. They mixed roughly cut up beef shank, salt, lots of black pepper and red wine—Chianti, of course—in terracotta pots and let it all bake slowly in a corner of their furnace until it was time to eat. The original slow cooker recipe? For the recipe, just click on the image above. Copyright © *Frank Fariello 2023*, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: gnocchiaifunghi@gmail.com Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.   Copyright © *Frank Fariello 2022*, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: gnocchiaifunghi@gmail.com Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.