Caldo de Marisco
Yields a big pot of soup.
Ingredients:
3-4 large potatoes (peeled, and cut into small pieces)
3-4 carrots (peeled, and cut into small pieces)
3-4 celery stalks (cut into small pieces)
½ white onion (minced)
1 cup roughly-chopped cilantro
9 dried chile guajillos
4 dried chile arboles (more or less depending on desired heat)
1 clove garlic
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
1 pound shrimp (peeled, cleaned, and deveined)
1 pound firm white fish (such as halibut; de-boned and cut into medium-sized chunks)
Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions:
Fill large pot half-full with water. Add potatoes, carrots, and celery. Cook over medium heat until soft (about 15 minutes). Remove from heat. Pour vegetables into colander and set aside until remaining ingredients are ready.
On flat skillet over medium heat, toast chile guajillos and chile arboles until lightly browned. Turn chiles so they brown evenly on each side. Once browned, add chilies to a medium-sized pot of water. Cook over medium heat. This will soften the chilies. Once chilies are soft, remove from heat. (But save the chile-water!) Clean all seeds and veins out of chilies over the sink. Wash with running water. Place each cleaned and washed chile in the bowl of a food processor (or jar of a blender). Add one clove of garlic and about ½ cup of the chile-water. Process chiles, water, and garlic until smooth.
Add 1-2 tablespoons olive oil to a medium sized skillet over medium heat. Let the oil heat up. Pour the chile mixture into the hot oil (be careful: the hot oil may pop!) Let the chile mixture thicken over medium heat for about 5-10 minutes.
In separate pot half-full with water, cook shrimp until pink (about 7-10 minutes). Remove pot from heat but leave shrimp in water.
Add vegetables and thickened-chile mixture to the pot of shrimp. Let cook for about 5 minutes. Add minced onion and chopped cilantro. Stir to combine.
Add the chunks of fish to the same pot. Let cook for about 15 minutes, and add salt to taste.
Serve with bread or tortillas and enjoy!!