Each locality has its own culinary speciality. In Saint-Jean-de-Luz, fish soup delights the taste buds of tourists and locals alike. This tasty dish is called Ttoro. Ttoro is in fact a typical regional dish of the Basque country, but the people of Saint-Jean-de-Luz celebrate it every year.
Ttoro, a traditional Basque dish in Saint-Jean-de-Luz
Ttoro is celebrated in September in this coastal town in the Pyrénées Atlantiques. Gastronomic competitions are organized as early as August. The results are announced on the big day. The program also includes a folk parade to the tunes of the bandas. Bandas, the typical travelling brass bands of south-west France, liven up the event. The story goes that Ttoro was once prepared on the open sea or in the fishing village, using the day’s fish leftovers as ingredients. It was a bit like the traditional Italian pizza, which used leftovers to make a typical Italian recipe. Today, however, the Ttoro class has moved up a gear. It now uses so-called “noble” fish in its recipes, the main ingredients of which vary from season to season.
Presentation of a Ttoro dish
This typical soup from the Basque Coast is quite thick. It is similar to a stew. All the fish species of the season are mixed in: monkfish, hake and conger eel. As the icing on the cake, a few seafood items such as mussels and langoustines are allowed to enrich the preparation. Choose the smallest or medium-sized pieces, , as the larger, whole pieces are simmered with tomato sauce, seasoned with garlic and Espelette pepper.
The ingredients and recipe for Ttoro
To prepare a good Ttoro like the kind you can enjoy in a small Basque port without getting in over your head, you’ll need :
- 4 slices of hake
- 4 slices of scorpion fish
- 4 pieces of monkfish
- 1 gurnard
- 1 live
- 4 langoustines
- 500 g mussels
- 4 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 glass of white wine
- Espelette chili powder .
Preparation
First, cut or quarter the gurnard and snapper.
Take care to clean the fish thoroughly. Keep the head and tail for smoking.
Use a clay pot to cook your Ttoro.
Then pour the oil into the cassolette and heat.
Brown the fish, then add the stock, scampi and mussels, followed by the white wine, and finish with the Espelette pepper.
Be careful when salting, as the fish may already contain some salt.
Then move on to cooking. This will take 10 minutes.
Serve your Ttoro with bread croutons seasoned with garlic.
Finally, a few tips and recommendations: The secret of Ttoro’s flavor lies in the preparation of the fumet or fish juice. Finally, don’t overcook hake. This is very important.
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