FISH casserole is quick and easy to do, and it will help you to get used to asking for metric quantities in the fishmonger’s (pescadería), writes Michel Coy.
Remember – Spanish people are not scientific in their use of grammes (and they have no idea what ounces are!), so please feel free to adjust and customise the amounts given here, to suit yourself.
I’ve mentioned before that for us, there are many types of squid. If you prefer, you can change squid rings for chipirones, which are small whole squid.
All I would say is, make sure you remove their skeletons (easily done – the bone structure of each animal is a single piece of clear material, for all the world like plastic!)
I’m an Andalucian purist, and I always include almejas, but you may feel that, aesthetically, you don’t want hard shells in your casserole.
Fair enough.
Rather than spend ages, fiddling with extracting the contents, just leave the shellfish out.
What I call ‘sweet pepper’ might be more familiar to you as ‘capsicum’. It’s a red powder, readily available in supermarkets.
As for stock, you can buy a cardboard box (called a ‘bric’) of it in the shops. Personally, I dislike commercial ‘caldo’, because it’s far too rich in salt. I prefer to render down prawn shells to make my own.
In order to avoid confusion, I’ll put a Spanish-English chart here.
SPANISH
ENGLISH
bacalao
cod
merluza
hake
anillas de calamar
squid rings
almejas
shellfish
chipirones
small, whole squid
cebolla
onion
pimiento
pepper
dientes de ajo
cloves of garlic (literally ‘teeth’)
capsicum
sweet pepper
caldo
stock
Ingredients for 4 persons
* 500 grammes (18 ounces) of fresh white fish (cod or hake)
* 150 grammes (6 ounces) of squid rings
* 100 grammes (4 ounces) of shellfish (almejas)
* 1 onion
* 2 tomatoes
* 1 red pepper
* 3 garlic cloves
* 1 spoonful of sweet pepper
* 50 millilitres (2 ounces) of white wine
* 250 millilitres (10 ounces) of fish stock
Salt & black pepper
Olive oil
Preparation (‘Elaboración’)
1. To start, heat a small amount of oil in a large frying-pan over medium heat. When hot, add the finely chopped onion, garlic, and red pepper. Season with salt and pepper and mix to combine. Let it cook for about 5 minutes.
2. Next, add the chopped tomato and paprika. Stir again and cook for a few minutes until the mixture thickens.
3. Once this is done, add the fish fillets, diced squid and shellfish to this mixture.
Stir briefly to allow all the ingredients in the fish casserole to absorb the flavours of the sauce while continuing to cook over medium heat.
4. Pour the white wine over the ingredients. Increase the heat for a few minutes to allow the alcohol to evaporate.
5. Add the fish stock and bay leaf. Reduce the heat to low and cook for approximately 20 minutes.
6. Finally, season with salt if necessary and serve immediately.
¡Buen provecho!
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