Sancocho de pargo, for a paseo de olla

Name: Sancocho de pargo, for a paseo de olla
Yield: Serves 30
Cuisine: The Pacific Lowlands, Chocó, Esmeraldas and Guayaquil
Ingredients: 30 fresh pargos, heads and bodies apart; 10 green plantains, in pieces; 3 coconuts, pressed for two milks; 7.5 litres (2 gallons) water; 4 stems of cebolla larga; 2 red onions; 2 tomatoes; 4 cloves of garlic; 2 tbsp ground cumin; 2 tbsp achiote colour; 2 sprigs of chirarán; 4 leaves of chiyangua; 2 leaves of oregano; 2 tbsp salt

Tumaco, the Mira river

Sancocho de pargo, red snapper in a broth of their heads with plantain, coconut milk and azotea herbs, cooked for a crowd: a huge blackened cauldron on driftwood embers on a beach, pale golden broth with whole red snapper and chunks of green plantain.

Illustration

Researched: Researched from 67 sources in the brief

A fish soup for a crowd: thirty red snapper in the broth of their own heads, with green plantain, coconut milk and the azotea herbs, finished in eight minutes. Catalina Caicedo of Vaquería on the Mira gives it as her favourite dish, for thirty people, the number a paseo de olla feeds, and every quantity is hers. The Ministry describes the Pacific sancocho as water, salt and seasoning with plantain, yuca, taro, pacó or yam and the azotea herbs in one pot with pork, hen, game or fish, the broth, the solids and the presa served apart; Buenaventura's is of pez ñato. The sancocho de piedra, the one for when there is no meat at all, is Elizabeth Valencia's and has its own entry in the Ferment and Preserve Bench of this volume.

As tradition built it

Serves 30.

Ingredients

30 fresh pargos, heads and bodies apart
10 green plantains, in pieces
3 coconuts, pressed for two milks
7.5 litres (2 gallons) water
4 stems of cebolla larga
2 red onions
2 tomatoes
4 cloves of garlic
2 tbsp ground cumin
2 tbsp achiote colour
2 sprigs of chirarán
4 leaves of chiyangua
2 leaves of oregano
2 tbsp salt

Method

Boil the water. Cook the pargo heads in it about 5 minutes, strain, and pick the bones out of the broth.
Add the plantain and the chopped cebolla larga and red onions, tomatoes, garlic, cumin, colour and salt.
Add the thin coconut milk.
Add the fish bodies and boil 3 minutes.
Add the chopped chirarán, chiyangua and oregano and boil another 3 minutes.
Add the thick milk, boil 2 minutes, turn it off and serve.

What a modern chef changes

Scaled to a table, and the broth clarified

Rungs 2 and 6

Method

Divide by six for five people and keep the ratios: five fish, two plantains, half a coconut, 1.25 litres of water.
Roast the heads before the broth and skim the broth hard; pass it through a chinois.
Cook the plantain in the broth until tender before the fish goes anywhere near it; the fish gets its 3 minutes and not a second of the plantain's 20.
Add the thick milk off the heat and let the pot stand 2 minutes closed, which is the tradition's 2 minutes without the boil.

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