Servings: 6 people
Calories: 305kcal
Ingredients
- 3 medium cloves garlic smashed
- ¼ cup fresh lime juice
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- ½ tablespoon smoked sweet paprika
- 1 lb halibut
- ½ lbs fresh shrimp peeled and deveined
- 2 tablespoon palm oil
- 1 medium white onion thinly sliced
- 2 medium bell peppers any color, thinly sliced
- 1 cup epis
- 14 oz can coconut milk
- 14 oz can fire roasted tomatoes
- ½ cup cilantro leaves and thin stems coarsely chopped
Instructions
- Remove the skin from the fish if present. Cut the fish into 1 inch chunks and place into a mixing bowl. Add the unpeeled shrimp and season with the spices, garlic, and lime juice. Allow to marinate refrigerated for 30 minutes.
- While the seafood marinates, chop/slice your vegetables and mix the spices together in a small bowl or ramekin.
- Heat a large skillet on low heat. Add the palm oil and make sure it covers the bottom of the skillet fully. Add the garlic and allow it to cook on low 30 seconds. Add the onions for 1 minute and then add the sliced bell peppers. Cook just long enough for the vegetables to soften some. add a third of the spice mix.
- Add the tomatoes, coconut milk, epis seasoning, and half the remaining spices. Mix well and reduce the sauce so that it thickens. This should take about 8-10 minutes.
- Add the cilantro and mix in well. Remove about 1 cup of sauce from the pan and set aside.
- Add shrimp and cook 2 minutes per side.
- Add the chunks of fish. Top with the reserved sauce and simmer 2-3 minutes until fish is cooked through. Serve.
Video
Notes
Do not forget to cook the palm oil on low heat. It has a low smoke point, meaning if you cook it too high it would become rancid and add a bitter unpleasant taste.
Halibut is my preferred fish for seafood stew. However other meaty white fish will work. Cod, snapper, grouper, etc. work great. The emphasis should be on firmness. You want fish that will not disintegrate during cooking. Scallops make a great fish alternative.
I prefer to use the habanero chili whole. You only want the natural sweet flavor of the chili not the heat! Excluding the veins and seeds removes the potential for spicy heat. Heat changes the character of this dish completely. I prefer to cut a few slits into the sides of the chili to allow the non-heat flavors of the chili to infuse flavor into the stew.
This dish is meant to look as good as it tastes. It's a very colorful dish and that color adds to the flavor appeal. After all we eat with our eyes. I used multiple colored bell peppers as well as leveraged the green from the cilantro.
Do Not add the seafood to the sauce until you've reduced the sauce sufficiently. Proper reduction concentrates the flavor in the sauce, but more importantly, you need the thicker concentration to withstand any watering down which can happen from the condensation that occurs when adding the shrimp and fish.
Add the shrimp first as it will take slightly longer to cook.
After reducing the sauce you will not have enough to cover the finish entirely so only parts of it will cook in the rich delicious sauce. To counter this, don't skip the step of removing about a cup of the sauce before adding the shrimp. You can top the fish with the reserved sauce.
Serve the Moqueca Brazilian Seafood Stew with sides like black beans and collard greens. I like to serve it over rice or even the West African super grain fonio.
Nutrition
Calories: 305kcal | Carbohydrates: 13g | Protein: 17g | Fat: 22g | Saturated Fat: 17g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 3g | Cholesterol: 37mg | Sodium: 555mg | Potassium: 656mg | Fiber: 4g | Sugar: 6g | Vitamin A: 1942IU | Vitamin C: 59mg | Calcium: 51mg | Iron: 2mg
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