Subscribe

Portuguese Bread Soup with Shrimp | Açorda de Mariscos

Portuguese Bread Soup  | Shrimp Acorda

Elisabeth Luard | The Food of Spain and Portugal | Kyle Books, 2005 | Serves 4

Lisbon’s açorda, or bread soup, is made with fresh seafood—usually prawns (large shrimp)—and tends to have a risotto-like texture. Although city folk prefer the elegance of white bread, cornbread makes a particularly good seafood açorda. The sweetness of the crumbled cornbread works well with crustaceans.—Elisabeth Luard

Active time: 30 minutes | Total time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

Portuguese Bread Soup with Shrimp Recipe

Ingredients

| metric conversion

  • 1 pound (about 1/2 loaf) dried-out broa (Portuguese cornbread) or any sturdy rustic loaf of bread
  • 2 large onions or leeks
  • 2/3 cup olive oil
  • 4 pounds ripe tomatoes
  • 1 whole head garlic, separated into cloves and peeled
  • 1 teaspoon black peppercorns
  • 1 teaspoon coriander seeds
  • 1 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 1 pound raw jumbo shrimp, shelled or not, depending on what you please
  • 4 ounces chouriço or chorizo, roughly sliced (optional)
  • 1 tablespoon anchovy paste or 2 to 3 canned anchovy fillets, crushed (optional)
  • A small pat of butter (optional)
  • Plenty of chopped fresh cilantro

Directions

Buy The Food of Spain and Portugal cookbook

Want it? Click it.

1. Tear the bread into bite-sized pieces. Let it soak in a bowl with enough salted water to cover for a couple of hours, then use your hands to squeeze it dry.

2. While the bread soaks, thinly slice the onions or leeks and heat them gently in a large skillet over medium heat with 1/3 cup of the olive oil until soft and golden, 30 minutes or longer.

3. Chop the tomatoes and let them cook down in a roomy pot with the rest of the olive oil and the garlic until half their volume.

4. Crush the peppercorns and coriander seeds in a mortar and add them to the tomatoes along with the oregano. When the tomatoes have cooked down, push them through a strainer, return them to the pan, and stir in the soaked, squeezed-out bread and 4 cups of cold water. Let it bubble up and cook gently for another 20 minutes, then stir in the contents of the skillet along with the jumbo shrimp, the sliced chouriço, if using, and an optional dash of anchovies to draw out the fishy flavor.

5. Cook the soup for another 20 minutes, until the bread is perfectly amalgamated with the broth. Stir in a pat of butter and finish with a liberal scattering of fresh chopped cilantro.

Hungry for more? Chow down on these:

Have something to say?

Tell us. Oh, and if you want one of those spiffy pictures of yourself to go with your comment, get a gravatar or sign in with your Facebook account. Also, please take a gander at our new comment policy before posting.

*