La Gallipolina della Vedova

• 3 pounds mixed white-fleshed sea fish fillets (sea bass, monkfish, halibut, snapper, etc.), rinsed in sea-salted water
• 6 ounces anchovies, preserved under salt
• 2 cups extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 large yellow onion, peeled and finely minced
• 6 fat cloves garlic, peeled, crushed, and minced
• 16 to 20 large prawns, heads removed, tails intact
• 2 14-ounce cans plum tomatoes, with their liquids
• 2 teaspoons fine sea salt
• 1 small dried red chile pepper, crushed, or 1/3 to 1/2 teaspoon dried chile flakes
• 1 bottle dry white wine
• 8 to 10 1-inch slices good country bread

1. Cut the fish into 4- to 5-inch chunks and pat dry.
2. Rinse the anchovies.
3. Remove their heads and bones, dry on paper towels, and crush lightly with a fork.
4. In a very large terra-cotta or enameled cast-iron casserole over a medium flame, heat 1 cup of the oil and soften the onion to translucence.
5. Add the anchovies and garlic, rolling them about in the oil for 1 minute, taking care not to color the garlic.
6. Add the fish, a few pieces at a time, sauteing each lightly and removing to a plate.
7. Next add the prawns, in two batches if necessary, turning them about until their shells turn angry red.
8. Remove the prawns to the plate with the fish.
9. Now add the tomatoes, sea salt, chile, and wine, bringing it all to a simmer, stirring it forcefully to loosen any bits lolling at the bottom of the pan.
10. Permit the sauce to cook, reducing, for 10 to 15 minutes while you warm the remaining olive oil and quickly brown the bread on both sides.
11. Keep the bread hot in the same low oven where the bowls in which youll present the soup are warming.
12. Acquaint the fish and the prawns with their sauce, permitting them to cook over the gentlest flame, the sauce barely simmering, for 3 or 4 minutes.
13. Carry the cocciocasseroleto table.
14. Place a trencher of bread in the bottom of each warmed, shallow bowl and cover it with several pieces of fish and a pair of prawns that youve retrieved with a slotted spoon.
15. Then ladle over all some of the good broth.
16. Frowning faces, pouting lips coated in golden crumbs, have instructed me to saute double or triple the amount of bread that might otherwise content my companions.
17. It is a good thing, too, to double the wine rations for the feast.

mixed whitefleshed, anchovies, extravirgin olive oil, yellow onion, garlic, prawns, tomatoes, salt, red chile pepper, white wine, country bread

Taken from www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/la-gallipolina-della-vedova-391173 (may not work)