Encebollado: Ecuador's National Fish Soup
Tuna broth with cassava, cured red onion and a great deal of coriander. In Ecuador it is eaten at any hour and has a reputation for bringing people back to life. The cured onion is not garnish: pickled in lime, it cuts the fat of the fish, and it is made before anything else so it has time to steep.
Ingredients
- 800 g fresh tuna (or bonito), in chunks
- 1 kg peeled cassava, in chunks
- 2 tomatoes
- 1 white onion
- 4 garlic cloves
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp annatto or paprika
- 2 litres of water
- Salt and pepper
- — For the cured onion —
- 2 red onions, sliced paper-thin
- Juice of 3 limes
- Salt
- Plenty of fresh coriander, chopped
- Plantain chips or popcorn, to serve
Method
- 1
Start with the cured onion: mix the red onion with lime juice and salt and leave it to steep while you do everything else. Half an hour minimum — that is what turns it tender and pink.
- 2
Blend the tomatoes, white onion and garlic with a little water.
- 3
Cook that base in the pot with the annatto and cumin for 5 minutes, until the raw taste is gone.
- 4
Add the 2 litres of water, season and bring to the boil.
- 5
Cook the fish in that broth for 8 minutes and no more, until it breaks into flakes. Lift it out with a slotted spoon and set aside: left in the pot it shreds to threads by the end.
- 6
In the same broth cook the cassava for 20 to 25 minutes, until tender. ⚠️ Cassava goes from hard to collapsed within minutes: test it often and take the pot off the heat the moment it gives.
- 7
Remove the hard central thread from the cassava, which never softens.
- 8
Return the flaked fish to the broth and warm it through for a minute without boiling.
- 9
Serve very hot and crown each bowl with the cured onion and plenty of coriander. Plantain chips or popcorn on the side, to scatter over.