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Tapado, Guatemalan Seafood Soup with Coconut Milk

By:

Michele Peterson
WEBSITE

Tapado, a delicious seafood soup with coconut milk, is a traditional dish from the Caribbean coast of Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras. The fragrant coconut broth, packed with fresh fish, lobster, shrimp, plantain, and yucca, makes it ideal for lunch or dinner.  It’s also gluten-free!

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon garlic clove
  • 1 teaspoon jalapeno
  • small handful cilantro
  • 1/2 red bell pepper
  • 2 Roma tomatoes seeded and peeled
  • 1/2 onion
  • 1 Tablespoon vegetable oil
  • 2 cups water vegetable or seafood stock
  • 1 cup yuca chopped into bite-sized pieces
  • 2 plantains sliced on diagonal
  • 1 green banana sliced on diagonal
  • 1/2 can Grace Foods coconut milk
  • 20 raw shrimp peeled and deveined but tails on
  • 2 Caribbean lobster tails if available or mixed seafood of your choice
  • 4 filets of white fish or you can fry a whole fish
  • 1/4 teaspoon achiote
  • Grace Foods Hot Pepper sauce

Instructions

  1. Chop the first six ingredients in a food processor
  2. Place the vegetable oil in the bottom of a large soup pot
  3. Saute the chopped vegetables in oil until soft and saucy but not browned.
  4. Dissolve the achiote in warm water (or seafood stock)
  5. Add water and achiote to sauteed vegetables
  6. Pour the coconut milk into the broth and vegetables
  7. Heat until simmering and add the sliced plantain, green banana and yucca
  8. Cook for around 10 minutes
  9. Add seafood and simmer for another 5-10 minutes until vegetables and seafood is tender but not mushy.
  10. Season with salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
  11. If you want to prepare it the traditional way, you can deep-fry a whole fish and lay it on top of the soup
  12. Serve with white rice, tortillas and Grace Foods hot pepper sauce

Notes

  • When choosing a plantain to use for tapado, look for one with black skin indicating it’s ripe but try to select one that is not mushy
  • Green bananas add a taste of bitterness that is a nice complement to the sweetness of coconut milk. Green bananas are simply unripe versions of yellow bananas. They’re often used in savory dishes in the Caribbean.
  • Don’t overcook your tapado soup. You want the fish and seafood to stay intact.
  • Use a firm white fish, such as halibut, haddock, or cod for this recipe. Stay away from sole ( too delicate) or tuna  ( too oily).
  • In Livingston, tapado is often served with fried whole fish on top.  To serve it the traditional Garifuna way, be sure to gut and scale the fish, dry it thoroughly, sprinkle it with sea salt, and fry it in corn oil until very crispy.
Tapado Guatemalan Seafood Soup with Coconut Milk

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