Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 40 minutes
Ingredients:
- 2 pounds (1 k) mixed fish
- 1 clove garlic
- Carrot
- Celery
- Olive Oil
- Tomato Sauce
- Pepper, salt, and hot pepper to taste
- Dry white wine
- Toasted bread
- Parsley
Preparation:
The best known cacciucco is cacciucco alla livornese, made in Livorno, which has a healthy jolt of red pepper. Cacciucco alla Viareggina is a bit blander but just as tasty."It's a spicy stew," says Mariu Zuliani, "that's served at all hours in the trattorie of Viareggio's port. A little less heavy on red pepper than what's made in Livorno, but equally good."
Begin by finely slicing an onion and mincing a clove of garlic and small amounts of carrot and celery (1/4 cup or so of each). Sauté the mixture in olive oil, and as soon as the onion turns golden stir in some tomato sauce (not too much; you're not making soup), pepper, a little shredded red pepper, and a pinch of salt, then add the fish, which should be washed, cleaned, scaled and boned -- add them either whole or chopped depending upon their size. The fish that work best are: reef mullet, totani (little squid), moscardini (baby octopus), a few pieces of dogfish or other larger sliced fish, monkfish, small grey mullet or a slice of a larger fish, and mussels or the shellfish of choice.
Heat through, then add a glass of dry white wine, and simmer until the fish is cooked. Remove the pieces that have remained whole, and put everything else through a strainer to filter out bones, scales and whatnot.
While the fish is cooking, rub slices of bread with garlic, toast them, and use them to line soup bowls. Then reheat the pieces of fish in their strained sauce, stir in a handful of minced parsley, ladle the cacciucco over the bread in the bowls, and serve.
The wine? White, and I might go with a white from the Colline Lucchesi, inland of Viareggio.
