Fish and Vegetable Chowder

Ingredients:

• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 onion, skinned and finely chopped
• 2 sticks of celery, trimmed and finely sliced
• 1 blade of fennel, trimmed and chopped very small
• a good pinch of saffron strands (rather than powder)
• 675g mixed white fish, bones & skin removed, and flesh cut into 2.5cm chunks
• 1 carrot, peeled and sliced into fine matchsticks
• 2 potatoes, peeled and chopped into small dice
• 850ml fish stock
• salt and freshly ground pepper
• 225 shellfish - e.g. cooked mussels, prawns, squid sliced in circles and sliced into thin strips
• 1 tbsp finely chopped parsley

Method:
Heat the oil in a large saucepan and add the prepared vegetables except the strips of tomato. Cook the vegetables over a moderate heat, stirring occasionally to prevent them sticking to the bottom of the pan, for about 10 minutes.

Pour in the fish stock and simmer for 10 minutes. Taste, season with salt and pepper and stir in the saffron. Before serving, reheat the soup, add fish, shellfish and the tomato strips and simmer the soup very gently for 5 minutes.

Just before serving, stir the chopped parsley through the soup. If you like, serve with toasted pieces of French bread floating on the surface and a bowl of garlic mayonnaise well spiked with Tabasco sauce to spoon into the soup on top of the bread.

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