Easy Suquet de Peix Recipe (Catalan Fish Stew)

Suquet de Peix is a Catalan fish stew recipe that originated on the Costa Brava.  Traditionally made with a bucketload of healthy ingredients such as fish, tomatoes, olive oil and garlic… this is one of those dishes that you never need to feel guilty about. So you can have that extra glass of wine!

Suquet de Peix literally means stew of fish, or fish stew… it’s one of those seriously easy dishes… without too much hassle… but that tastes amazing when cooked from scratch. There are of course many variations, but this is a basic one… and you shouldn’t go far wrong with it.

Ingredients (serves 2 with “seconds”… or 4 for the less greedy amongst you)

• 1/2 kilo of firm fish such as monkfish or seabass, chopped into bitesize pieces and with all bones removed
• 1/2 kilo of shellfish. Nice to mix mussels and prawns. Shell and de-vein the prawns, but keep the mussels in their shells
• 1 medium onion very finely sliced
• 2 medium ripe tomatoes (roasted then peeled) or just use a very small handful of jarred sun roasted tomatoes instead
• 4 cloves of garlic (or 6, if like me you love the stuff) peeled and crushed.
• 1 slice of day old bread
• 1 to 2 tablespoons of sweet paprika
• Mugful of fish stock (that’s about half a stock cube’s worth, if that helps?)
• Salt
• Pepper
• Olive Oil
• Water

Method

• Fry the fish and prawns in a really good couple of glugs of olive oil until just about cooked, in a large frying pan. I like to use my cazuela as it’s needed later on and cuts down on the washing up.
• Drain the fish and set aside.
• Steam your mussels in a large separate saucepan with a lid, until they have just opened. Discard any that don’t open.
• Using that same olive oil from the fish, gently fry the slice of bread in your cazuela until it is golden brown on both sides. Remove the bread and set it to one side.
• Mash the bread with the garlic in a pestle and mortar…. or with the back of a dessertspoon in a bowl if you don’t have the p & m. Keep mashing until it forms a paste, then add the tomatoes and keep mashing.
• Back to that same olive oil in the cazuela again, and gently sweat the onions.
• Once the onions are translucent, add the tomato/bread/garlic paste and the paprika to them and stir really well.
• Cook for a couple of minutes over a medium heat until it starts to bubble a little bit
• Into that cazuela, add the fish stock, all the fish, prawns, and mussels… plus half a mugful of water if it looks a little dry to you.
• Let it simmer gently for about half an hour and serve with crusty fresh bread for dunking… and of course plenty of wine!
• I don’t bother dishing it up separately… just stick the cazuela straight onto the table (using heatproof mats if you need them) and let people help themselves.

By all means, try it with different fish or seafood (it’s lovely with a bit of squid sliced into it)… or perhaps throw in some of those juicy piquillo peppers. But this is a fish dish… so don’t start chucking meat in, or it is no longer a “Suquet de Peix”