🇨🇱 Chile · Chilean coast, caletas and ports
Paila marinaChilean seafood soup
A Chilean coastal soup of mixed shellfish (clams, mussels, shrimp, and in some versions machas, piures and squid) and firm fish such as conger eel, corvina or salmon in a light broth of onion, garlic, white wine and ají de color or merkén, served boiling in a black clay dish with lemon.
Origin and history
A Chilean news article calls paila marina a traditional coastal broth of Chilean cooking. It says it began with artisanal fishermen, who cooked the day's catch and shellfish gathered from the rocks, and later spread to popular eateries and markets, where it became a weekend-lunch staple. It is served in a clay paila, the pan that gives the dish its name. The sources give no date for its origin.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 6 servings
- Total time
- 1 h
- Hands-on
- 40 min
Ingredients
- 18 clams (almejas), in the shell, scrubbed and purged
- 30 mussels (choritos), in the shell, scrubbed, beards removed
- 6 pieces, about 600 g1.3 lb conger eel (congrio) and/or salmon fillet, salted lightly, kept cold; corvina or another firm white fish also used
- 18 whole shrimp, thawed if frozen
- 1 cup peeled shrimp tails
- 3 tbsp oil
- 2 large onions, cut in thin strips
- 2 cloves garlic, chopped
- 2 tomatoes, seeded, cut in strips
- 1 tbsp ají de color (mild red chile powder) or merkén, paprika can stand in
- 2 sprigs fresh oregano
- 1 cup1 cup (240 ml) dry white wine
- 1 liter1 quart fish broth, ideally made from the fish head, onion and herbs
- salt, cilantro leaves and lemon wedges, to taste / to serve
Method
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1. Wash the clams and mussels in cold water and keep them refrigerated; salt the fish pieces and keep them cold too.
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2. Heat the oil in a wide pan and cook the onion and garlic with a little salt, the oregano and the ají de color over low heat for about 3 minutes.
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3. Add the tomato, cook briefly, then pour in the wine and let it reduce by half.
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4. Spread this base in a clay pot (paila) or wide casserole and lay the fish on top.
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5. Arrange the clams, mussels and shrimp around the fish and pour in the hot fish broth up to the rim of the pot.
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6. Cover and cook at a steady boil for about 10 minutes, until the shells open and the fish flakes; discard any shells that stay shut.
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7. Scatter cilantro over the top and bring it to the table boiling, with lemon wedges.
Notes
- Quantities follow a Chilean cooking-school recipe (published by Marca Chile); it lists no servings, so the yield is an estimate, and its fish line names conger eel and salmon together. Piures (sea squirts), machas and squid appear in other descriptions of the dish and are hard to find abroad; extra clams or squid replace them.
- A Chilean news piece describes the sofrito as onion, garlic, paprika and cilantro with white wine and ají de color or merkén, and lists cream, parsley and lemon among possible extras; the exact recipe varies by region and cook.
- Traditionally served boiling in a black clay paila (paila de greda negra), which keeps the soup hot at the table, with lemon on the side.
- Caldillo de congrio is a separate soup with its own page, built on conger eel.
Adapted from Marca Chile, Paila marina (Cocina chilena) and 24horas, Caldillo de congrio y paila marina entre los mejores platos.
At the festivals
No festival we list has printed it on a menu yet.