The recipe for the true brodetto does not exist, there are as many as the "bell towers" of the Adriatic coast. Here is a guide (and some recipes) to extricate yourself between tomato, vinegar, eels, saffron and other typical ingredients from Trieste to Puglia
How nice to make the brodetto from Trieste down. Along the Adriatic coast the fish broth get ready in many variations as many are the ports that open to welcome the fishing vessels with their precious cargo. So many different recipes for this simple fish soup, colored by the red of the tomato or perfumed with saffron, fragrant with herbs or hot peppers, but all united by the raw material: "poor" fish, base for a dish of fishermen that today finds new life in view of the revaluation of regional cuisine traditional.
Because once the brodetto was prepared in many cases directly on board fishing vessels, or in the fishermen's houses, whose wives knew how to valorize with their art what they had at their disposal: little fish too small, or too "spiny", or too little valuable to be sold on the market, all that remained in the nets and that it was not intended for commerce.
White, of eels, with pepper and vinegar …
In Trieste mixed fish and crustaceans are enriched with the flavor of wine and tomatowhile a Degree of "boreto", strictly white, can also be prepared with only one variety of fish: essential is a steaming polenta to accompany.
The brodetto is very popular Chioggia, while decidedly particular is that of Comacchio, based on eels.
In Rimini the soup smells of pepper and vinegar, and further down, in the Marche, the soup is declined in many different variations: that of Ancona, rich in different fish, is enriched with tomato and vinegar, that of Porto Recanati, is fragrant with wild saffron, while that of Porto San Giorgio it is recognized because it is decidedly spicy.
In Abruzzo the rivalry between cultori of the brodetto alla pescarese and the purists of the broth with the vastese: in discussion the presence or absence of the sautéed, the cooking methods (covered or uncooked pan?), the possibility of perfuming with vinegar, but above all the addition of fresh peppers, which characterizes the recipe of Vasto.
Green pepper and hot pepper also in the brodetto alla termolese, "u bredette", traditionally cooked with the "scafetta", the part of "second choice" fish that every fisherman was responsible for every evening.
Between one and the other, the infinite typicality that each locality or fraction, but above all that every family jealously guards, to trace an unmissable itinerary of flavors along our coasts.