This great harbor city of the Antipodes -- or indeed the world -- with its abundance of fish and seafood -- has no seafood soup to call its own. But Australia -- and Sydney in particular -- prides itself on its multiculturalism. Instead of coming up with a fish or seafood soup of its own -- Sydney chefs of all nationalities serve the whole gamut of fish or seafood soups of the world and variations thereof.
Rock Oysters
One variation which sometimes appears on menus during the hot summer months is a seafood variation of Gazpacho -- that chilled Spanish tomato soup -- served with fresh Sydney rock oysters. If blue swimmer crab and local harbour praws are added to it, it would be the nearest Sydney comes to a seafood soup of its own.
Sydney's foreshores are full of rock oysters and they are also farmed locally, mostly in the St Georges River and are sold at a fairly reasonable price at the Sydney Fish Market, fish shops and most supermarkets all year round. Blue swimmer crab is also available fresh locally all year round. It is a swimming crab -- relatively small -- weighing up to 500g. As the name suggests, it is blue in color but turns red during cooking. Its body is full of delicate, nutty, favorsome white meat. For more variation, local, fresh harbor prawns, when they're in season, can be added to the soup:
Sydney Seafood Gazpacho
- 2 blue swimmer crabs cooked (or canned/frozen crab meat)
- 1dz raw, fresh Sydney rock oysters (or canned oysters)
- 250g cooked harbour prawns (optional)
- 1 cup fresh breadcrumbs
- 2 tblsp red vinegar
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 2 small cucumbers
- 1 red onion
- 1 red pepper
- Some continental parsley
- Fresh thyme
- Basil leaves
- 300ml extra virgin olive oil
- 1kg ripe tomatoes (if unavailable, two cans of tomatoes can be used instead)
- Tabasco or chilli sauce (optional)
- Iced water
- Ice cubes
- Freshly ground pepper and sea salt to taste
Making it
- Remove the oysters from their shells, extract the white meat from the blue swimmer crabs. If using prawns, shell them and de-vein them if necessary. Soak breadcrumbs in the vinegar. Mix the breadcrumbs in a food processor or blender with garlic, one and-a-half cucumber, three-quarter of the onion and most of the red pepper until smooth. Add oil in a thin stream for a mayonnaise-like consistency.
- Pour into a bowl. Place tomatoes in a separate bowl and cover them with boiling water and stand for one minute. Rinse under cold water, cut out the hard core, squeeze out the seeds in a small bowl and remove the skin. Place the skinned and de-seeded tomatoes in the food processor or blender, strain in the juices from the seeds and blend until smooth. Add tomatoes to the breadcrumb mix and add Tabasco or chili sauce for a spicier taste. Chop the fresh parsley, thyme and basil and add to soup, leaving some aside for later.
- Chill the soup in the fridge. Just before serving, stir in enough iced water for a 'soupy' consistency and add ice cumbes. Chop up the rest of the cucumber, onion and pepper. Prepare four soup bowls, place the seafood in the middle of the bowls, pour over the chilled soup, place a tablespoon of chopped cucumber, onion and pepper on top, sprinkle with the rest of the fresh herbs and serve immediately.
Eva Wiland - Eva Wiland is a Sydney-based freelance business journalist with a passion for food who commutes between the southern and northern ...
