Brodetto fanese

As befits a slender peninsula surrounded by sea, Italy abounds in fish soups. They go by various names. Sometimes they have their own unique name like Livorno’s cacciucco or Genova’s ciuppin. But most often they’re called zuppa di pesce or, on the Adriatic, brodetto. This one, called brodetto fanese, is from Fano, a town in the region of Le Marche on the Adriatic coast.

While brodetto fanese has much in common with other Italian fish soups, it has a special characteristic: the seafood is simmered in a mixture of tomato concentrate, water and a healthy dose of wine vinegar, which gives the dish a rather unique tangy flavor. The other thing that makes this brodetto special is sheer variety. A proper brodetto fanese includes cephalopods, usually cuttlefish or squid, crustaceans such as cannochie (mantis shrimp) or scampi, and a variety of firm fleshed white fish from the Adriatic. Seven or eight types of seafood is common, though there are those who say you need 10, 12, 13 or even 20 different types of seafood to make a truly DOC brodetto fanese.

Now is perhaps the best time to make this lovely dish. Fano’s annual BrodettoFest is being held this weekend, May 30-June 2! If I were in central Italy right now, I’d hightail it over to Fano. The event sounds like a blast. But for those of us who can’t make it there, here’s the recipe so you can participate in spirit by making this easy but super tasty dish at home.

Ingredients

• 2 kg (4-1/2 lbs) assorted seafood, including cephalopods, fish and crustaceans (see Notes), cleaned and cut into serving pieces or, if small, left whole
• 1/2 small onion, finely chopped
• 1-2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 1 tube of tomato concentrate aka paste (about 120-130g/4oz)
• 6 Tbs wine vinegar
• 2 small glasses of water
• 250ml (1 cup) olive oil
• salt and pepper

Directions

In a low and wide casserole, sauté the onion and garlic in the olive oil over a gentle flame.until the onion is soft and translucent.

Dissolve the tomato concentrate in the vinegar and water, then add the mixture to the casserole. Raise the heat a bit and bring the casserole to a simmer. Season generously with salt and pepper. Taste and adjust if needed; the liquid should be very savory.

Add your cephalopods and continue simmering for about 10-15 minutes. If you have some fish heads, add them also and then remove them before adding the next batch of fish.

Lay the fish in the casserole one piece at a time, starting with the largest and firmest varieties (such as monkfish and dogfish) then small whole fish, if using, and finally the smaller and tenderer fillets. Partially cover and continue simmering until all the fish are cooked through and tender. (Simmer time can vary from as little as 10-15 minutes for fish fillets to as long as 20-25 minutes for whole fish.)

Finally, arrange your crustaceans over the fish and simmer partially covered until they have cooked through and turned pink, usually about 3-5 minutes.

NB: Throughout the above steps, adjust the flame as needed to maintain a constant, gentle simmer. If the broth reduces too much at any point, you can add more water so the seafood remains about half covered. Do not stir once you’ve added the fish. If need be, gently shake the casserole so not to break up the fish.

Serve hot, with lots of crusty bread, grilled or toasted, on the side.

Notes on brodetto fanese

Once you have your seafood ready to go, as you’ve seen brodetto fanese is actually super easy to make. It’s just a mater of adding the different types of seafood in proper order so they each cook properly. Be aware that the cephalopods need at least 30 minutes to get tender, so adjust the simmer time accordingly.

Here I’ve used a slightly modified version of the recipe posted on the BrodettoFest website. I’ve added more detailed instructions for one. And I’ve made a few tweaks, starting with allowing for shorter cooking times. Traditionally, in making brodetto, you’re using the less desirable fish you can’t sell or would otherwise throw away, so the focus is on making a really tasty broth (or brodo, hence the name of the dish!) rather than cooking the fish to perfection. Personally, when it comes to fish soups, I tend to cook the fish a bit less, even if it means a slightly less rich broth. In the case of brodetto fanese, let me tell you that the broth will be plenty tasty anyway, given its composition and the high ratio of fish to liquid.

I’ve also increased the amount of onion and garlic. The original recipe calls for only 1/4 onion and a single garlic clove for 2 kilos of fish. I couldn’t resist the temptaion to increase this—and other recipes for brodetto fanese do the same.

You may have noticed that, unusually for me, I’ve specified the amount of olive oil to be used. That because it’s important to be very generous and I suspect that most readers wouldn’t realize you should use as much as is called for. Here the abundant olive oil not only provides a lovely shine and a velvety mouth feel, but it also balances out the acidity of the vinegar quite nicely.

Speaking of which, don’t be alarmed by the amount of vinegar. Your mouth won’t be puckering! Besides the olive oil, its acidity mellows quite a bit as it simmers, leaving only a pleasant mild tang.

Choice of seafood

Brodetto fanese is best when made with a wide variety of different types of seafood, usually no fewer than seven. Indeed, as noted at the top, some sources tell you that a true brodetto fanese needs at least 10, 12, 13 or even 20 different types! And to make a truly DOC brodetto fanese, the Confraternita del Brodetto says you must use seafood actually fished out of the central Adriatic and nowhere else. Also verboten is the use of frozen seafood.

Well, pace the Confraternita, most of us home cooks will need to compromise a little. Perhaps we shouldn’t call the product of our efforts brodetto fanese, but it will be very tasty indeed.

As for variety, you should at a minimum include each of the three categories of seafood: cephapopods, typically cuttlefish or squid or both, fish—generally a few different kinds of white firm fleshed white fish— and crustaceans, typically mantis shrimp or prawns, or both.

And if you don’t have access to fish fresh from the central Adriatic, no worries, there are reasonable substitutes. In fact, if you ask me, there’s no need to be too terribly fussy about your choice of seafood. After all, brodetto fanese, like fish soups generally, were a way to use up leftover catch. That said, the more fish you can find from the “official list”, the closer your brodetto will taste to the original.

TLDR;

For an assortment of that would be fairly easy to find here on the eastern coast of the US, you could include squid as your cephalopod, a few types of fish such as monkfish, skate, cod or haddock, grouper, seabass and snapper, and finally jumbo shrimp, preferably with heads and tails still attached. Extra points if you score some cuttlefish and mantis shrimp.

Canonical varieties

For readers who really want to drill down, here’s a detailed list of the types of seafood used in making brodetto fanese, along with some suggested substitutions. I’ve complied this list from two principal sources: the recipe on the BrodettoFest website and the “official” recipe reportedly registed by the Confraternita del Brodetto.

The specific choices are up to you. Ditto for the amounts of each type of seafood. There are many different recipes for brodetto, each with their own specific asssortments. Now you can create your own!

Cephalopods

• Seppie (Cuttlefish): The bigger, tougher brother to squid, with a meatier texture and more assertive flavor. Fairly easy to find where I live in ethnic markets. Substitute calamari if you can’t find it.
• Calamari (Squid): While many recipes, including that of BrodettoFest, include cuttlefish as the only cephalopod, the “official” recipe from the Confraterita allows for both cuttlefish and squid. Both need cleaning, though where I live squid are often sold pre-cleaned, as are baby cuttlefish.

Fish

• Rana pescatrice or coda di rospo (Angler or Monkfish): A large, firm fleshed, almost ‘meaty’ fish, sometimes knicknamed the poor man’s lobster. Typically bought cut in thick slices. If you can’t find it, then another meaty fish like halibut, turbot or cod.
• Razza (Ray Fish or Skate): Although they look rather intimidating, the wings of ray fish and skate are actually quite delicious. The recipe calls for razza or ray fish, but its smaller cousin skate is easier to find at better fishmongers.
• Mazzola (Spiny Dogfish or Tope Shark): An edible member of the shark (Squalidae) family found in the north Atlantic and north Pacific. Substiute another firm fleshed fish such as cod, monkfish, swordfish or sea bass. 
• Gattuccio (Spotted Catshark aka Spotted Dogfish): Literally “little cat”, this is another edible shark. See above for possible substitutes.
• Polombo (Dogfish): Very similar to the gattuccio, this is yet another edible shark. See above for substitutions.
• Scorfano (Scorpion Fish): This rather ferocious-looking spiny—and poisonous— fish earns its name. But apparently it makes for fine eating, being a standard ingredient also in bouillabaisse. Substitute snapper, seabass or halibut.
• Tracina (Weevers): If you can’t find this one in your local store, do not try to fish it. This member of the Trachinidae family can sting you, a fairly common occurrence it seems on beaches in the Mediterranean and as far afield as the southern North Sea where this fish lives. You can substitute haddock or cod.
• Boccaincava aka pesce prete (Priest Fish or Atlantic Stargazer): A popular ingredient in Mediterranean fish soups (including cacciucco) but usually considered ‘bycatch’ elsewhere. You can substitute this firm fleshed white fish with gurnard or its substitutes (see below).
• Pesce san Pietro (John Dory) is another firm flesh flat white fish, with a mildly sweet taste and a buttery melt in your mouth feel. Widely available in the UK and in Europe, but hard to find elsewhere. Turbot, sole and grouper can substitute, as can the ever popular seabass.
• Triglia (Mullet): A small, very flavorful and rather oily fish, native to the Mediterranean and north-eastern Atlantic. NB: The mullet found in the US is another species, but you can sometimes find imported red mullet in finer shops or online. (Be prepared for sticker shock!) You can substitute another firm-fleshed oily fish such as snapper, mackerel or sea bass.
• Sogliola (Sole): Here you want true Dover sole, not lemon sole or flounder, which while lovely fish in their own right, are too delicate and would probably fall apart in the simmering. Unfortunately Dover sole is very expensive. Frankly you might want to save it for another use.
• Gallinella (Gunard): a rather large Mediterranean fish with mild, tender but rather bony flesh belonging to the Triglidae family. It isn’t on the “official” list but you will often find it in other recipes for brodetto fanese. A common ingredient also in bouillabaise. Gunards are available in the UK and reportedly becoming more common in the US. Substitutes include monkfish, cod or redfish.

If your fish are small, as those from the Adriatic tends to be, you can just leave them whole. Otherwise, if you’re working with larger ocean fish as substitutes, cut them into serving pieces. Sources vary as to whether you should fillet your fish or not, so go with your own preference. Filleted fish is easier to eat, of course, but the bones do add a bit of flavor.

Crustaceans

• Canocchie (Mantis Shrimp): I can sometimes find this distinctive long crustacean, which looks a bit like a mantis (hence the name) at local Asian markets. Otherwise, use regular shell on shrimp, as large as you can find. Many recipes, including the “official” one, include both mantis shrimp and scampi (large prawns or langoustines). Leave the shells on but cut an incision on the underbelly for easy access to the meat.
• Scampi (Langostine or Large Prawns/Shrimp): Scampi have tiny front claws like langoustines, but the word is often just translated as large prawns, which you can use in substitution. Pretty much universally available worldwide, try to find large ones with their heads and shells still on for better flavor. The shells also help stop them overcooking.
• Granchio (Crab): You actually don’t see crabs in many recipes, but reportedly they are allowable by the Confraternita del Brodetto.

‘Heretical’ varieties

Mussels are controversial, it would seem. They do appear in a minority of recipes, but not mentioned in “official” sources. In fact, some sources are emphatic that a true brodetto fanese does not include mussels. Ditto for clams. But if you do use them, add them at the end with the shrimp.

Variations

In some recipes, you simmer fish heads and other trimmings initially to enrich the broth. If you have these trimmings by all means do this. Remove them before adding the other fish.

In some recipes for brodetto fanese, the tomato paste is added to the soffritto, with the water and vinegar only added with the seafood. But this would seem to be very much a minority view.

Most recipes don’t specify white or red wine vinegar, but those that do usually specify white.

In some recipes, you add wine, either in addition to or in replacement of the vinegar. Some call for balsamic vinegar, which of course produces a darker broth. In yet others, puréed canned or fresh tomatoes are used in addition to the paste, though most sources I’ve seen condemn this.

If you’d like some color, a sprinkling of minced parsley wouldn’t be amiss. But again, some sources consider this heresy….

Making brodetto fanese ahead

Brodetto fanese is best freshly made, but if you must, you can make it ahead of time. I’d suggest perhaps holding back the crustaceans, however, until you reheat the dish to avoid overcooking them.

Print Recipe

Brodetto fanese

Fish soup from the town of Fano in Le Marche

Total Time45 minutes mins

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Le Marche

Keyword: seafood, simmered

Ingredients

• 2 kg (4-1/2 lbs) assorted seafood, including cephalopods, fish and crustaceans cleaned and cut into serving pieces or, if small, left whole
• 1/2 small onion finely chopped
• 1-2 cloves of garlic finely chopped
• 1 tube of tomato concentrate about 120g/4oz
• 6 Tbs wine vinegar
• 2 small glasses of water
• 250 ml (1 cup) olive oil
• salt and pepper

Instructions

• In a low and wide casserole, sauté the onion and garlic in the olive oil over a gentle flame.until the onion is soft and translucent.
• Dissolve the tomato paste in the vinegar and water add the mixture to the casserole. Raise the heat a bit and bring to a simmer. Season generously with salt and pepper.
• Add the cephalopods and continue simmering for about 10-15 minutes. If you have some fish heads, add them also and then remove them before adding the next batch of fish.
• Lay the fish in the casserole one piece at a time, starting with the largest and firmest varieties (such as monkfish and dogfish) then small whole fish, if using, and finally smaller and tenderer fillets. Partially cover and continue simmering until all the fish are cooked through and tender. (Simmer time can vary from as little as 10 minutes for fish fillets to as long as 25-30 minutes for whole fish.)
• Finally, arrange the crustaceans over the fish and simmer until they have cooked through and turned pink, usually about 3-5 minutes.
• Adjust the flame as needed to maintain a constant, gentle simmer throughout the above steps. If the broth reduces too much at any point, just add more water so the seafood remains about half covered. Do not stir once you’ve added the fish. If need be, gently shake the casserole.
• Serve hot, with lots of crusty bread, grilled or toasted, on the side.

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