The Overlooked Soups on a Cevichería Menu

Parihuelas, concentrados, chupes & more.

Concentrado de Cangrejo, from Mi Peru in Barranco, Lima. Photo: Nicholas Gill.

My first real immersion into Peruvian seafood took place while living in Chorrillos, the once quaint fishing village at the southern end of Lima that was absorbed by the city’s ongoing urban sprawl. I was living in a building on Parque San Pedro, in what is today a cevichería, within two blocks of five other cevicherias, and a short walk from the Muelle de Pescadores Artesanal, one of two artisan fishing piers within the city limits (the other being in Callao, on Lima’s northern end). Even if the shopping complexes and a fancy beach club might suggest otherwise, pulling fish and shellfish from the sea and preparing it is the most natural act in the neighborhood.

Naturally, I started exploring all the types of ceviches, that masterful balancing act of acidity. The mixtos and carretilleros, not to mention ceviches cousins like tiradito and muchame. Ceviche is normally the first course in this style of seafood restaurant, as the name would suggest, followed by something heavier, like various rice dishes like arroz con mariscos or even tacu tacu relleno de mariscos, a favorite dish of mine I also was introduced to on the same streets. There were also recipes allegedly invented in the neighborhood like pescado a la chorrillana, which baths fish in a tomato, onion and ají sauce.

As winter approaches, ceviche loses some of its appeal and what I want out of a first course changes. Something warm and soulful to get you through the days of mist and gray that blanket the neighborhood. This is when the oft-overlooked soup corner of the usually too long cevichería menu shines. You have your aguaditos, a thin soup with a heady mix of cilantro and seafood. You have the chilcano, which is obviously different from the ginger ale, lime and pisco cocktail of the same name, though the same flavor of ginger and lime runs through the fish broth. There’s also concentrado de choros, mussel broth, best taken alongside a sandwich, as well as thick, creamy chowders called chupes.

The star of a cevichería menu’s soup section, at least in Chorrillos, a village of fishermen, at least at its heart, is parihuela. It is Peru’s answer to a caldeirada or a bouillabaisse, a fragrant, sometimes spicy soup made of herbs, aromatics and chiles. It is generally a combination of whatever white fish and shellfish is available, sometimes the scraps and leftovers. A splash of white wine might be used for acidity, but beer or chicha de jora is often used in its place. Some of the best preparations are not even in formal cevicherías, like the one at El Huarique de Doña Isabel at the Mercado #1 de Chorrillos, or some of the seafood shacks down by the pier.

When using only crab, it’s called concentrado de cangrejo. Concentrado usually just means a broth in Peru, but this is dish is often meaty, with a whole popeye crab usually mixed in with the best preparations. Some even call it parihuela de cangrejo, which might be more accurate. The restaurant Mi Peru in Barranco specializes in this kind of concentrado de cangrejo, and the following recipe is inspired by it.