Zarzuela de pescado – Catalan fish & shellfish stew with picada

On the Catalan coast, zarzuela originally meant "a lively theatrical piece" — a name that describes exactly what lands on the table: several fish varieties, shellfish and cephalopods, each with its own entrance, gathered in a saffron-coloured broth built on a deep sofrito, a Catalan picada and a brief brandy flambé. Not a soup but a tomato-and-iodine, silkily bound seafood pot in which every ingredient still tastes of itself.

Fish & Seafood Category
30 MIN Prep time
45 MIN Cook time
Serves 4 Servings
Zarzuela de pescado – Catalan fish & shellfish stew with picada

Preparation

Prepare the fumet

Keep the fish stock hot in a pot: it must be scalding hot when poured in — cold stock breaks the layering of aromas. Toast the saffron threads dry for 15 seconds in a small pan, crumble them with your fingers and add them to a ladle of stock.

Sear the seafood

Heat a wide, shallow cazuela (earthenware pan) or a deep 32 cm sauteuse over medium heat with 3 tbsp of olive oil. Sear the prawns 40 seconds per side, lift them out and set aside. Cook the squid rings for 90 seconds and lift them out too. No long browning — both return to the broth later.

Melt the sofrito for 20 minutes

Add the remaining olive oil (5 tbsp) to the cazuela, sweat the onion and carrot on low heat (10 minutes, no colour). Add the garlic and cook 2 more minutes. Stir in the grated tomato and let it reduce gently for 10 minutes, until the oil separates at the edge and the mass darkens — that is when the sofrito has done its foundational work.

Fold in pimentón, flambé the brandy

Briefly lower the heat, stir in the pimentón — do not brown it, it turns bitter at once. Add the brandy immediately, wait 30 seconds (it must warm up), then light it with a long match. When the flame dies on its own, pour in the white wine and reduce briskly for 3 minutes, until the alcohol smell is gone.

Prepare the picada in the mortar

While the sofrito simmers, pound the almonds, garlic, parsley and toasted bread with a pinch of salt in the mortar into a sandy paste. Loosen it with 2 tbsp of cold fish stock ladled from the broth. The picada later binds the broth silkily and gives it texture — a blender chops it too finely and lets the essential oils escape.

Set the broth going

Pour the hot saffron stock into the sofrito, drop in the bay leaf, season with salt and pepper. Over medium heat, simmer uncovered for 8 minutes so the aromas settle.

Poach the fish in stages

First add the rape (firm monkfish) and let it steep gently for 3 minutes. Then tuck in the merluza, mussels, clams and squid, and return the prawns to the pan. Cover and poach for 5–6 minutes until the shells open. Do not boil, only steep — fish that cooks at a rolling boil falls apart.

Stir in the picada, rest, serve

Take the cazuela off the heat and stir the picada into the broth — it binds it silkily at once. Let it rest 3 minutes, scatter freshly chopped parsley on top and serve straight from the cazuela with lemon wedges and rustic white bread.

Why this wine?

The Prélude is the cool white on the Catalan coast: its crystalline strawberry and citrus fruit cuts through the tomato-and-iodine depth of the broth and the roasted notes of the saffron-pimentón sofrito, while its rosé texture takes up the sweetness of the prawns and the delicate merluza tone. A wine that neither overpowers the zarzuela nor bows to it — it carries the stage light this dish was made for.
Good to know

Tips & insights

  • The sofrito really has to melt for 20 minutes — it is the foundational flavour of the broth. Browning it is wrong, the onion should stay glassy and tender.
  • When flambéing, wait until the brandy warms (30 seconds); lit too early the flame is feeble, lit too late the alcohol evaporates unburnt.
  • Stir the picada in only at the end, never let it boil. Fresh herbs, almonds and bread give the broth binding and aroma — both are lost in a rolling boil.
  • Add the fish in stages: firm rape first, delicate merluza later. Adding everything at once means broken hake and raw monkfish.
  • Zarzuela grows while it rests. Pull the cazuela off the heat and wait 3 minutes and you get a deeper, more concentrated broth than straight out of the simmer.

The wine to pair

See all wines for this category

More from our estate? Discover Le Cercle