A cooking platform built around craft, culture, and the stories behind what we eat.
Created by
Mazatlan's seven seas soup. Shrimp, octopus, fish, clams, crab, scallops, and squid in a guajillo-tomato caldo finished with epazote, served with lime, salsa huichol, and saltines on the side.
This is from Sinaloa. Specifically from Mazatlan, the Pacific port where the shrimp boats come in at dawn and the marisquerias along the malecon serve this soup in clay cazuelas big enough to bathe a baby in. Caldo de siete mares is the dish you order when someone in your family is hungover, heartbroken, or celebrating something that calls for seafood and tequila in equal measure.
The seven seas are not literal. They are seven kinds of seafood: shrimp, octopus, fish, clams, crab, scallops, and squid. Some marisquerias swap mussels for scallops, or add jaiba in place of stone crab. The number is the principle. You are eating the whole Pacific in one bowl. The broth is what holds it together, and the broth is built from the bones and shells, not from a cube and not from a carton. If you throw the shrimp shells away, you have thrown the soup away. Si no conoces el mercado, no conoces la cocina.
The red color comes from chile guajillo and chile ancho, toasted on a comal and blended with charred tomato, onion, and garlic. The chiles are not for heat. They are for depth and color. The heat comes at the table, from sliced serrano and a bottle of salsa huichol that every Sinaloense kitchen keeps within arm's reach. The epazote at the end is what tells you this is Mexican seafood and not some coastal Italian cousin. Without it, the broth feels naked.
My mother did not cook seafood. She was from Jalisco and a city woman, and she trusted very few things from the ocean. But the first time I went to Mazatlan, in my late twenties, I sat at a marisqueria called El Camichin and a senora named Luz served me a caldo de siete mares in a brown clay bowl with the crab claw sticking out of it like a flag. She watched me eat the whole thing. She told me, write this down. La cocina no es decoracion, es trabajo. I wrote it down.
Caldo de siete mares evolved in the marisquerias of Sinaloa and Nayarit during the mid-20th century, as the Pacific coast's commercial fishing industry expanded after the construction of the Mexican Pacific railway and the growth of Mazatlan as a deepwater port. The dish draws on the Spanish-Mediterranean tradition of mixed-seafood soups (caldereta, suquet, sopa de mariscos) carried by Cantabrian and Catalan immigrants who settled along Mexico's western coast, but the chile-tomato base, the epazote finish, and the ritual of dressing the bowl at the table with lime, salsa huichol, and saltines mark it firmly as Sinaloense. The number seven is symbolic rather than fixed: the dish is sometimes called caldo de mariscos when fewer varieties are used, and a marisqueria's siete mares is generally a point of pride and competition with neighboring stalls.
Quantity
1 pound
reserved from peeling the shrimp
Quantity
1 pound
Quantity
12 cups
Quantity
1 medium
halved
Quantity
1
halved crosswise
Quantity
2
Quantity
1 small bunch
leaves reserved for serving
Quantity
1 tablespoon, plus more to taste
Quantity
6
stemmed and seeded
Quantity
2
stemmed and seeded
Quantity
4 medium
Quantity
3
Quantity
1/2 medium
Quantity
1 teaspoon
Quantity
1/2 teaspoon
Quantity
3 tablespoons
Quantity
1 (about 1 1/2 pounds)
cleaned
Quantity
1 pound
peeled and deveined, shells reserved
Quantity
1 pound
cut into 2-inch chunks
Quantity
1/2 pound
halved if large
Quantity
1/2 pound
bodies cut into rings, tentacles whole
Quantity
1 pound
scrubbed
Quantity
2
halved (or 1/2 pound lump crabmeat)
Quantity
1 large sprig
Quantity
for serving
Quantity
for serving
Quantity
for serving
Quantity
for serving
Quantity
for serving
Quantity
for serving
Quantity
for serving
warmed
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| shrimp shells and headsreserved from peeling the shrimp | 1 pound |
| fish heads and frames (huachinango, robalo, or white-fleshed fish) | 1 pound |
| cold water | 12 cups |
| white onionhalved | 1 medium |
| head of garlichalved crosswise | 1 |
| bay leaves | 2 |
| fresh cilantro stemsleaves reserved for serving | 1 small bunch |
| kosher salt | 1 tablespoon, plus more to taste |
| dried chile guajillostemmed and seeded | 6 |
| dried chile anchostemmed and seeded | 2 |
| Roma tomatoes | 4 medium |
| garlic cloves | 3 |
| white onion | 1/2 medium |
| dried Mexican oregano | 1 teaspoon |
| ground cumin | 1/2 teaspoon |
| olive oil | 3 tablespoons |
| small octopuscleaned | 1 (about 1 1/2 pounds) |
| large raw shrimppeeled and deveined, shells reserved | 1 pound |
| firm white fish fillet (huachinango or robalo)cut into 2-inch chunks | 1 pound |
| bay scallops or sea scallopshalved if large | 1/2 pound |
| cleaned squidbodies cut into rings, tentacles whole | 1/2 pound |
| littleneck clamsscrubbed | 1 pound |
| fresh blue crabs or stone crabshalved (or 1/2 pound lump crabmeat) | 2 |
| fresh epazote | 1 large sprig |
| lime wedges (optional) | for serving |
| chopped fresh cilantro leaves (optional) | for serving |
| diced white onion (optional) | for serving |
| sliced fresh chile serrano (optional) | for serving |
| salsa huichol or salsa Tamazula (optional) | for serving |
| saltine crackers (optional) | for serving |
| hand-pressed corn tortillas (optional)warmed | for serving |
Rinse the shrimp shells and heads and the fish frames under cold water. Place them in a large 8-quart stockpot with the cold water, halved onion, halved garlic, bay leaves, cilantro stems, and salt. Bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat. Skim the gray foam that rises in the first ten minutes. The broth is the dish. Use cold water and a slow simmer or you will end up with cloudy, bitter stock. Cook for 45 minutes, then strain through a fine-mesh sieve and discard the solids. You should have about 10 cups of golden, briny caldo. This is the foundation. No me vengas con atajos.
While the broth simmers, bring a separate pot of salted water to a boil. Lower the cleaned octopus in by the head, then lift it out, then lower it again. Do this three times. The Mediterranean cooks who taught Mazatlan's marisquerias call this scaring the octopus. It tightens the skin and keeps the tentacles from curling into knots. Then submerge it fully and simmer over low heat for 45 minutes to an hour, until a knife slides easily into the thickest part of a tentacle. Drain, let it cool slightly, and slice the tentacles into 1-inch pieces. The body can be cut into rings.
Heat a dry comal or heavy skillet over medium. Toast the guajillo and ancho chiles separately, about 20 to 30 seconds per side. They should puff and turn fragrant, never blacken. Move them to a heatproof bowl and cover with hot tap water. Hot, not boiling. Let them soften for 20 minutes. Boiling water cooks the skin and the salsa turns bitter. Asi se hace y punto.
On the same comal, char the Roma tomatoes, the half onion, and the three garlic cloves. The tomato skins should blister and blacken in patches. The onion should darken on its cut side. The garlic stays in its skin and turns golden through the paper. This takes about ten minutes. Turn everything as it darkens. The char is what gives the broth its smoky depth.
Drain the soaked chiles, reserving a half cup of the soaking liquid. Peel the charred garlic. Place the chiles, charred tomatoes, charred onion, peeled garlic, oregano, cumin, and the reserved soaking liquid in a blender. Blend on high until completely smooth, about two minutes. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl, pressing on the solids with the back of a spoon. Discard what stays in the sieve. You want a clean, deep red puree with no grit.
Heat the olive oil in the rinsed-out stockpot over medium-high heat until it shimmers. Pour in the strained chile puree all at once. It will sputter and seize for a moment. Stir constantly for five to seven minutes, until the puree darkens by a shade and the oil starts to bead at the edges. This step cooks the raw chile flavor out and concentrates the sauce. Skip it and your caldo will taste like watered-down salsa.
Pour the strained seafood broth into the pot with the chile base. Add the cooked octopus pieces and the halved crabs. Bring to a low simmer and cook for 15 minutes so the broth and the chile fully marry and the crab gives up its sweetness. Taste for salt now. The seafood that follows is delicate and will not season the broth. The broth has to be right before anything else goes in.
Drop the clams in first and cover the pot. After three minutes, add the fish chunks. Two minutes later, add the squid and the scallops. One minute after that, add the shrimp. Tuck the epazote sprig into the broth. Cover and cook just until the shrimp curl and turn pink, about two more minutes, and the clams have all opened. From clams to finish should take no more than eight or nine minutes total. Pull the pot off the heat the second the shrimp are done. Overcooked seafood is rubber and there is no fixing it.
Ladle into wide deep bowls, making sure each one gets a piece of every sea: a few clams, a piece of crab, octopus, fish, squid, scallops, and shrimp. That is the whole point of caldo de siete mares. Set the lime wedges, cilantro, white onion, sliced serrano, salsa huichol, and saltines in small dishes around the table. Each guest builds their own bowl. Squeeze of lime first. Always lime first. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.
1 serving (about 570g)
Culinary guides, cultural storytelling, and the editorial depth that makes cooking meaningful.
Discover Culinary Explorer
Chef Lupita
Baja California's fish birria: cabrilla or sierra braised in an adobo of guajillo, ancho, chile California, ginger and clove. Coastal cooking that takes the inland Jalisco template and rewrites it with what comes off the Pacific that morning.
Chef Lupita
Sonora's manta ray and shrimp stew, with green olives, carrots, capers, and the wild chiltepin chile from the Sierra Madre Occidental. The pure broth, served first in a tin cup, is the bichi.
Chef Lupita
Sonora's desert-ranch broth, built on sun-cured machaca toasted in lard, fresh tomato, fire-roasted chile Anaheim, and potato. Eaten with thin flour tortillas the size of a forearm.
Chef Lupita
Sinaloa's smoky shrimp broth, built on toasted camarón seco, charred tomato, and a guajillo-pasilla salsa fried in lard, finished with potato, carrot, and a hard squeeze of lime at the table.