Instructions: In a 6-quart stockpot, heat oil over medium heat until smoking. Add onion, garlic, chiles, and fennel; cook until soft and light golden brown, 8 to 10 minutes.

Add tomatoes, wine, and water, and bring to a boil. Lower heat, and simmer for 10 minutes. Add shrimp, and simmer until cooked through, about 5 minutes.

Pour into a soup tureen, garnish with fennel fronds, and serve with plenty of pepper.

This recipe yields 4 to 8 servings

Comments: The traditional southern-Italian Christmas Eve dinner is a feast composed of seven fish dishes symbolizing the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church. For this meal, chefs Mario Batali and Cesare Casella are inspired by the cuisine of Campagnia and, more specifically, that of the Amalfi coast between Naples and Salerno, because of the simply prepared seafood of that region. Marinated eel, marinated fresh anchovies, octopus, whole red snapper, salt cod with mint and chiles, shrimp in crazy water, and linguine with clams are made with the freshest seafood enhanced with delicious ingredients harvested from Campagnias rich, volcanic soil.

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