Serves 5-6
1. To make a roast tomato sauce, halve 1kg ripe, full-flavoured tomatoes, and arrange, tightly packed but not on top of each other, in an ovenproof dish. Mix 2-3 finely chopped cloves of garlic with 2 tbsp olive oil and trickle evenly over the tomatoes. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Roast in a medium-hot oven (180°C/Gas 4) for 35–45 minutes, until the tomatoes are soft, pulpy and slightly charred. Rub through a sieve, discarding the skins and seeds. Any sauce you don’t use in the soup is delicious with pasta.
2. Put the belly pork in a large, heavy saucepan and fry over a medium heat until lightly coloured. Add the garlic, onions, celery and fennel seed. Fry gently for a further 10 minutes, to soften the vegetables, without browning them.
3. Pour in the wine and cook until the liquid is reduced by half. Add the tomato sauce and fish stock, bring to a simmer and cook, covered, for 20 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, skin the fish fillets. Put the fish on a board, skin side down. Start at the tail end and run a sharp filleting knife along the fillet, between the skin and the flesh. Remove the pin bones by slicing down either side of the bone line.
5. (Trimmings such as skin and pin bones can be frozen for use in stocks.) Cut the fish into fairly large chunks.
6. When the tomatoey soup base has had its 20 minutes, simply add the fish to it and cook briefly in the gently simmering soup. It should need only 2-3 minutes to be cooked perfectly.
7. Season the soup with pepper, and salt only if necessary (with the bacon, you probably won’t need it). Ladle into hot bowls – garnished with chopped parsley if you like - and serve, with crusty bread.
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