Often the fish are left whole, but here I have first made a broth, strained it, and then cooked fillets offish in it to avoid bones swimming around. It is so simple. Potatoes, onions, garlic, chunks of tomato and fish.

Serves 4

Ingredients:
1 kg assorted whole soup fish, cleaned and gutted
A small bunch of flat leaf parsley
1/2 stick celery + 4 heaped tablespoons including some leaves
3 garlic cloves, 1 whole, 2 chopped
1 large red onion
5 tablespoons of olive oil
60 ml white wine
450 gms very ripe tomatoes peeled cut into chunks
400 gms potatoes cut into chunks of about 1.5 cm
400 gms perch or snapper fillet cut into 4 pieces or 4 x 100 gm fillets
juice of 1 lemon
2 heaped tablespoons coarsley chopped flat leaf parsley to serve

Method:
Make a broth. Put the soup fish into a stock pot and cover with 1 litre (35 fl oz/4 cups) of cold water. Add the bunch of parsley, piece of celery, whole garlic clove, salt and a couple of grinds of pepper. Peel the onion and cut off a piece from one side. Add this piece to the stock pot. Chop what’s left of the onion and put to one side for the moment. Bring the pot to the boil. Lower the heat and simmer for about 20 minutes. Strain, discarding the bones and skin of the fish. You should have about 750 ml of broth. Depending on the fish you’ve used, you may be able to salvage some flesh for another use.

Heat the oil in a large wide pot and saute the chopped onion until softened and pale golden. Add the chopped celery and saute until that softens too. Next add the chopped garlic and cook until you can smell it, then add the wine. Cook until the wine has almost evaporated then add the tomatoes, potatoes, some salt and pepper and simmer for about 5 minutes. Add the fish broth and simmer for another 5 minutes before adding the fillets. Lower the heat and simmer uncovered until it loses the watery look and the fish is cooked through, 10 minutes or so. Add the lemon juice and the extra chopped parsley, rock the pot to distribute it all gently and taste for salt. Add a grind of pepper and serve hot with bread.