Suquet de peix recipe: fish with a picada

Suquet de peix is a fish stew that cooks in just a few minutes, but first it asks for a day of marinating, a patient sofrito and a well-crushed picada. This recipe follows the Turismo de Vinaròs version, drier than those with stock, and contrasts it with Consum’s only to point out the differences.

The fish: firm-fleshed and a night in salt

Vinaròs asks for about a kilo of firm-fleshed fish and starts the day before: it is cleaned, preferably with sea water, as was done on the boats, salted, covered with a cloth and left in the fridge overnight. That salting beforehand is part of the recipe, not a detail. Consum uses monkfish and hake in equal parts, which are a good example of firm flesh.

Before cooking, arrange it in a single layer and make sure all the pieces have a similar thickness.

Sofrito and picada

The earthenware pot does all the work. First the picada is fried (garlic, almonds and bread) and crushed in the mortar. In the same pot the garlic is softened with the grated onion until well cooked. The grated tomato and the paprika go in, the tomato’s water is drained off, the white wine is poured in and left to reduce. If the technique interests you, the sofrito has its own entry.

The picada is finished at the end, with the parsley and saffron, and used to bind the sauce with a few spoonfuls. Vinaròs makes it with almond; Consum, with hazelnut. Here we stay with Vinaròs’s.

Cooking: short and covered

The fish is arranged neatly, lightly salted, the water is added and it is covered well. The heat is lowered and it cooks for about ten minutes, watching that it doesn’t dry out. It is a recipe almost without stock. If you are after a brothy suquet, with a litre of fish stock, that is another recipe: you can make the fish fumet first, and in the glossary you have what a fumet is.

Vinaròs brings it to the table once all the fish is well cooked. Consum cuts the monkfish into large pieces and salts it, adds a little salt to the onion so it releases its water sooner, and cooks the fish with the picada for 6 to 8 minutes, a little less than the ten of Vinaròs.

Why the picada matters most

The picada is what separates this suquet from fish in tomato sauce. It is fried, crushed in the mortar and added at the end, in a few spoonfuls: just enough to bind without covering the fish. In the Vinaròs version it has garlic, eight almonds, a slice of bread, parsley and saffron. Consum swaps the almond for hazelnut and adds paprika and chilli, so they are two sister dishes, not the same one. Choose one picada and don’t mix them.

With potato, or without

The Vinaròs variation lays sliced potato on the bottom, before the fish, with a little more water. The other steps don’t change.

A family of fish stews

Suquet is not the only Valencian dish of fish and sauce. The eel all i pebre has fried, crushed garlic, paprika and potato. The arròs a banda cooks the rice in a stock of rock fish.

Mistakes that will cost you

• Not marinating. The night in salt is part of the recipe.
• Piling up the fish. It goes in a single layer, neatly.
• Uncovering and letting it dry. The cooking is short and covered.
• A picada that isn’t crushed. The almonds and bread are crushed in the mortar to bind the sauce.

If there are lots of you at the table

It is a casserole stew, for spoon-and-bread tables. If there are lots of you, we cook for groups at paellas and show cooking, and to measure quantities per guest, there is the guide to how much rice per person.