Fish and Prawn Soup with Haricot Beans and Paprika

I’m finding it really difficult to get excited about fish at the moment, I don’t know if it’s because it’s been cold lately but when I’m trying to think of something for dinner, fish just doesn’t seem to appeal. I’m hoping that will change as the weather warms up and, with a slight nod in that direction, today we came up with this. It was very easy, the only difficult thing being remembering to soak the beans which, as usual, I forgot until this morning. They managed about seven hours of soaking before I boiled them rapidly for half an hour and then transferred them into the main dish and simmered for a further hour and a half. Not a bad workaround.

For something relatively simple and easy to put together, it was a pretty good dish. We used cod but both felt that something firmer like monkfish would have been better. The prawns were a good addition though, the sweet flesh working well with the heat of the paprika…quite a lot of paprika as it turns out, since my hand slipped!

1 onion, sliced

1 red pepper, sliced

2 cloves garlic, crushed

Tablespoon paprika

100ml dry sherry

100g haricot beans

250ml chicken stock

Salt and pepper

Tablespoon sundried tomato paste

250g white fish

2 large prawns

Tablespoon chopped parsley

Gently soften the onion in some olive oil and some salt for about five minutes before adding the pepper. Contine to sautee for another five minutes and then add the garlic. Cook for another five minutes. Stir in the paprika.

Deglaze the pan with the sherry and let it bubble for a couple of minutes until it’s almost evaporated. Stir in the beans, add the stock and the tomato puree and then season with salt and pepper. Bring to the boil, reduce and simmer until the beans are tender (this took 1.5 hours for us but we used fresh beans, timings would vary if you used tinned).

Once the beans are cooked through, add the fish and cook for about four minutes (dependant on size, of course). Stir in the chopped parsley and serve.

We ate it on it’s own but it was crying out for some crusty bread. Chorizo would have been a brilliant addition too.