Il caciucco
Caciucco is the ideal recipe for all seasons. It honours good cuisine and enhances the pleasure of dining with your best friends.

Caciucco recipes are as many as the number of kitchens where this typical Leghorn dish is cooked. Many are the variants and, everyone has his favourite version. Start from the recipe below to invent your own. But, keep three rules in mind: the fish must be well assorted and obviously fresh. Besides, enhance the ingredients with a creative touch.

Serves six (with a good appetite)
About 2 kg of fish: rockfish, gurnard, sliced smooth dogfish and hake, eledone, cuttlefish, prawns, shrimp, mussels and whatever the market has to offer.

A few ripe seeded peeled tomatoes (toss them into boiling water to peel them in a second) chopped roughly. Garlic (two-three cloves or more, if you haven't a busy social schedule the next day). Ginger. Oil. Salt. A glass of red wine.

Brown the crushed garlic and ginger in a large pan without burning the garlic. Add the wine and let it start evaporating before throwing in the tomatoes. Add the eledone and cuttlefish and, cook till they are almost done. Then, throw in the remaining fish, considering the cooking time required by each (we recommend an assortment that cooks quickly) so that everything is uniformly cooked at the end. Check the salt. Let the mussels open in a separate pan with a touch of oil and a clove of garlic. Save the mussel broth and add it to the soup.
Turn off the fire.

Prepare the dishes by placing a slice of Tuscan bread toasted on the pan or in the oven. Rub a clove of garlic on it, pour the soup on the bread and, add the mussels.
Good appetite!