Smoky Shrimp and Chorizo Soup

  

 

A new restaurant in my neighborhood is a casual joint, relatively speaking.  It is part of a family of restaurants that includes a very upscale restaurant downtown featuring French-Belgique cuisine.  Its sister restaurant is located next door to this local place, also very fine.  The casual third restaurant is no out-of-place step-child.  It is warm with booths, a bar, a high table with tall chairs, heat and light from the open brick oven.  It is also sophisticated, in part from the menu of flatbreads and mussels.  If it’s one thing Belgium knows it’s mussels, and beer of course.  This place keeps a dozen or more beers from Belgium that you've never heard of, probably to build mystique.  Whether those are actually for drinking or not, the food is definitely for eating.  They offer gourmet flatbreads with ingredients such as prosciutto, goat cheese, and forest mushrooms.  They also serve several different mussel combinations, including one with chorizo sausage that I order regularly.  Pork and seafood is a classic combination.  Portugal features pork and clams, the pork marinated in paprika and white wine, and then cooked together with the clams in a stock and tomato broth.  Of course, the Iberian peninsula is also home to chorizo, so smoky and rustic.  I’m a mussels fan too, which is why I like the mussels and chorizo dish. 

   

All of these thoughts and flavors return to my mind and palette in the recipe below from Food and Wine.  The smokiness of the chorizo is combined with the bread-dipping good broth, and the shrimp provides an easy seafood partner, as well as a nice additional firm crunch.  Topped with luscious avocado slices and this dish is creamy, spicy, hearty, savory, smoky, all wonderful tastes and feelings.  Did I mention quick too?

Serves 4.

      

Ingredients:

1 lb shrimp, shelled, shells reserved

1 quart low-sodium chicken broth

1 tbsp olive oil

4 oz dry chorizo, peeled and sliced

½ large sweet onion, diced

1 garlic clove, minced

½ tsp sweet smoked paprika

1 14-oz can diced tomatoes, drained

2 tbsp flour

2 tbsp butter

salt/pepper

avocado slices

   

Directions:

In a medium saucepan, simmer the shrimp shells in the chicken broth for 10 minutes.  Strain the broth and keep the shells.  In a large pot, heat the oil over medium-high heat.  Add the chorizo and cook a few minutes to brown slightly.  Remove and reserve.  Turn down the heat to medium and add the onion, garlic and paprika.  Soften the onions for 5 minutes.  Add the tomatoes and cook a further 5 minutes.  Add the chorizo to the pan along with the broth and bring to a boil.  Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for 25 minutes.  Meanwhile, in a small pan melt the butter and stir in the flour to make a roux.  Cook the roux for another minute to reduce the flour flavor, and then whisk into the soup.  Simmer a few additional minutes to thicken the soup.  Ladle into bowls and serve with the avocado slices.