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Italian · V The Canonical Dishes · Abruzzo

Brodetto di Pesce alla Vastese con Peperoni Dolci

Vasto, Abruzzo

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I

Origin

Abruzzo (Vasto), central Italy

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Description

Vasto's fish stew is distinguished from all other Adriatic brodetti by one irreplaceable ingredient: sweet bell peppers (peperoni dolci) cooked into the base — not as garnish but as a structural flavour component. A soffritto of olive oil, onion and garlic is built, then sliced sweet peppers are cooked until completely soft and beginning to caramelise. White wine deglazes, followed by crushed tomatoes. The fish is added in sequence by cooking time — first firm-fleshed cuttlefish or squid, then monkfish or bream, then clams and mussels added last. The stew simmers uncovered over medium heat, each fish type added at precisely the right moment. No bread thickening, no cream — the sweet pepper caramelisation and reduced fish juices provide all the body.

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The Thread

—Provençal fish stew where aromatic vegetables (fennel, tomato, saffron) are fully cooked before fish is added in sequence by cooking time → Bouillabaisse Marseillaise · French
—Layered Atlantic fish stew built on an aromatic sweet pepper and tomato base with multiple fish added at different stages Portuguese
—Coastal fish stew with a sofregit of caramelised onion and pepper providing structural sweetness beneath the fish and its juices Spanish · (Catalan)
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Flavour Context

Sweet, caramelised pepper as the bass note; briny shellfish; delicate white fish; tomato acidity; olive oil richness — a brodetto that is sweeter and more complex than its Adriatic counterparts.

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