Tapado - Guatemalan Seafood Soup with Coconut Milk

A white bowl of Garifuna tapado seafood soup from Guatemala with rice on the side. .

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4.83 from 39 votes

Tapado - Guatemalan Seafood Soup with Coconut Milk

A creamy seafood soup featuring rich coconut milk, yucca and plantain

Prep Time10

Cook Time30

Total Time40

Course: Soup

Cuisine: Guatemalan

Servings: servings

Calories: 825kcal

Author: Michele Peterson

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 in 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 white fish or you can fry a whole fish
1/4 teaspoon achiote
Grace Foods Hot Pepper sauce

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

Chop the first six ingredients in a food processor
Place the vegetable oil in the bottom of a large soup pot
Saute the chopped vegetables in oil until soft and saucy but not browned.
Dissolve the achiote in warm water (or seafood stock)
Add water and achiote to sauteed vegetables
Pour the coconut milk into the broth and vegetables
Heat until simmering and add the sliced plantain, green banana and yucca
Cook for around 10 minutes
Add seafood and simmer for another 5-10 minutes until vegetables and seafood is tender but not mushy.
Season with salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
If you want to prepare it the traditional way, you can deep-fry a whole fish and lay it on the top of the soup
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 the coconut milk. Green bananas are simply unripe versions of the yellow banana. They're often used in savoury 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 a 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.

Note: Nutritional information is provided as a courtesy and is not guaranteed to be accurate. It is created by online calculators and although we attempt to provide accurate nutritional information, the figures are only estimates.

Nutrition