Rich fish and seafood stew

(Serves 6 to 8)

West Country fish is superb, not only the famous Cornish crab and mackerel, but many other varieties besides, and I was also lucky enough to have fish cooked for me on a few occasions when I wasn’t working.

One night Tom had prepared fillets of Dover sole, and another evening Rick Stein, at the Seafood Restaurant in Padstow, cooked a marvellous dish of plaice and lemon sole in a red wine sauce. But as long as you use the saffron for colour and flavour, you can use a selection of Mediterranean fish and seafood in my fish stew recipe, which makes a meal in itself.

Stock:
1.25-1.75kg fish bones
Celery stalk
Slice of ginger – see recipe

Put the bones in a saucepan with the celery and ginger, cover with water, simmer for 45 to 60 minutes, and then strain. I do not use carrots and onions when making fish stock because they add a sweet starchiness to the liquid, which to my taste masks the flavour. Celery and ginger, on the other hand, add a clean, fresh, savoury taste which enhances the stock.

Base:
2 to 3 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, peeled and chopped
2 leeks, trimmed and sliced
2 celery stalks, trimmed and sliced
4 potatoes, peeled and diced

Fish:
1 kilo prepared fish, such as bream, amberjack, small skorfna, vopa, gallina, etc, scaled and cleaned and trimmed of fins
500g dentici fillet, skinned and diced
1 squid, cleaned and cut into rings, optional
400g prawns in the shell

Herbs and seasonings:
Parsley, mint, tarragon, coriander, chopped spring onions or chives
Gozo sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan, and in it fry the vegetables until translucent. Pour on about 1 litre fish stock, and cook until the vegetables are tender. Pour in about 1 litre more stock, and bring to the boil. At this point, add the fish, herbs and seasoning, bring back to simmering point, and cook for 5 to 8 minutes before serving.

Cook’s notes:
Dry cider or white wine, can replace at least half the water in the recipe. As a garnish, rather than use extra herbs, roast a few saffron threads under the grill or in a dry frying pan and scatter them on the stew just before serving.

For a more refined stew, have all the fish carefully filleted, remove the skin from all but the red mullet, and cut into even pieces. This is how we did it when I once cooked the fish stew for a dinner at the Café Royal Grill Room in London.

As a garnish, we roasted some saffron filaments and scattered them over the stew just before serving. The hot broth quickly unlocked the saffron’s fragrance.