Chupín is the fish stew of the Uruguayan coast, and its name gives away its family. It descends from ciuppin, the Ligurian fishermen's soup made from whatever the boats could not sell, which Genoese immigrants carried to the Río de la Plata in the middle of the nineteenth century. The same seafaring line produced cioppino in San Francisco. In Uruguay the soup became a stew, built in layers in a heavy pot: sliced potatoes on the bottom, then thick rounds of corvina, the local croaker, then peppers, onions and tomato, all moistened with wine and stock and cooked without stirring.

In the early twentieth century it was the favorite meal of young Montevideans at the wooden beach huts of Buceo, cooked for friends after an afternoon of football and swimming in the sea, and it remains the kind of dish that brings people to the table by its smell alone. The method could hardly be gentler on the cook: arrange the layers, put on the lid and resist the urge to interfere.

Any firm white fish that holds together in a pot will do. The one rule is to leave it alone so the steaks stay whole.

The sofrito

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup (80 ml) olive oil
• 2 medium onions
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 green bell pepper
• 1 celery stalk
• 4 garlic cloves
• 1 teaspoon sweet paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (ají molido)
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 2 bay leaves

Layering and cooking the chupín

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 lb (680 g) waxy or all purpose potatoes, such as Yukon Gold
• 2 lb (900 g) firm white fish steaks or thick fillet pieces, such as corvina, cod or hake
• 2 teaspoons fine salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 4 ripe medium tomatoes
• 1 cup (240 ml) tomato purée (passata)
• 1 cup (240 ml) dry white wine
• 2 cups (480 ml) fish or seafood stock
• 4 ship's biscuits (galleta marina) or plain water crackers

Serving

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons flat leaf parsley
• 1 lemon

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