Serve with Focaccia Bread and a Winter Salad. Recipes below.
Ingredients
3 tablespoons butter, divided
1 garlic clove, minced
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped carrot
1/2 cup diced red bell pepper
2 cups seafood stock or clam juice
1 teaspoon seafood (Old Bay) seasoning
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (chili)
1 cup cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
1 lb firm boneless fish fillets (such as halibut, cod, red snapper, sea bass, grouper), cut into small cubes
8 oz medium shrimp, shelled, deveined, tails removed and cut in half
8 oz sea scallops, halved
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup minced fresh parsley, plus extra for garnish
Directions
In a large saucepan over medium heat, melt 2 tablespoons of butter. Add the onion, celery, carrot and bell pepper. Cook until the vegetables are tender, 3-4 minutes. Add the garlic and stir into the vegetables. Pour in the chicken broth and bring to a simmer. Cover the pan and cook the vegetables until tender. Remove the cover and the salt, pepper, chili flakes, seafood seasoning, thyme, and tomatoes. Sir well.
Add the fish cubes, Cook stirring the mixture gently for 2 minutes. Add the shrimp and scallops and cook for 2 minutes more or until the seafood is cooked. Add the cream, parsley, and remaining tablespoon butter, heating gently until the butter is incorporated. Garnish with chopped parsley. Serve in large individual pasta bowls.
Winter Salad
Radishes are in season where I live and this week they came in jumbo sizes.
Ingredients
Dressing
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Coarse salt and ground pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salad
4 cups arugula, washed well and dried
4 jumbo radishes or 8 small radishes (8 ounces), sliced thin
Directions
In a medium salad bowl, whisk together mustard and lemon juice; season with salt and pepper. Whisk in oil. (To store, refrigerate, up to 1 day.) Add arugula and radishes to bowl, and toss to coat. Serve salad immediately.
Easy Focaccia
Ingredients
1 pound pizza dough
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Coarse sea salt and black pepper, for sprinkling
1 garlic clove minced
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary leaves
Directions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Roll the pizza dough into a rectangle or oval on a sheet of parchment paper. Place the dough and the parchment on a baking sheet.
Using a pastry brush, cover the top of the dough with olive oil. Sprinkle the dough with coarse sea salt and pepper. Sprinkle the dough with the garlic and rosemary. Bake the focaccia until golden brown, about 25 minutes. Cut into slices and serve.
The idea for this tomato-based seafood stew comes from the fisherman from Genoa who immigrated to the US and settled in the Bay area of California. Cioppino was developed in San Francisco by these Italian immigrants who prepared a fish stew with what they had on their fishing boats from their daily catch.
Legend has it that requests were made as the boats came in for the day asking for any seafood to “CHIP IN ” to the pot; add Italian seasoning and hence the name: Cioppino (chip-EEN-o). Most food historians and cookbook authors don’t even try to fix the recipe in time, although all point to San Francisco as the place of origin. Cioppino wasn’t well-known beyond the Bay area (or at least outside of California) until after World War II. John Thorne…describes in the September/October 1996 issue of his newsletter, Simple Cooking, how he came upon a vintage (1921) cookbook that discusses cioppino in detail. That book, Fish Cookery, by Evelyn Spencer of the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries and John N. Cobb, director of the College of Fisheries at the University of Washington, offers a recipe for cioppino that had appeared three years earlier by H.B. Nidever in California Fish and Game. Thorne believes that it may be one of the first, if not the first, ever published.
In 1925 Nunzio Alioto, an Italian immigrant, set up a stall at #8 Fisherman’s Wharf to sell lunchtime provisions to the Italian laborers. His business grew and by 1932 he had constructed the first building at the corner of Taylor and Jefferson, by combining the fish stand with a seafood bar. After Nunzio passed away unexpectedly, his widow Nonna Rose and her three children took over the stall. In 1938 she installed a kitchen in the original structure and officially opened Alioto’s Restaurant. Their specialty was Cioppino.
Here is my version that I have developed over the years and one that suits my family’s taste.
Italian American Seafood Stew (Cioppino)
Serve with a green salad and some crusty Italian bread for dipping in the delicious sauce.
Ingredients
1/4 cup olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 celery ribs, chopped
5 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 dried bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
3 cups fish stock
2 cups chopped Italian tomatoes in juice, crushed
1 tablespoon dried Italian seasoning
2 pounds firm, skinless fish fillets (such as red snapper, grouper, swordfish, tuna, mahi-mahi or halibut), cut into bite-size pieces
1 lb shrimp, deveined
1 lb sea scallops
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1/2 cup coarsely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 cup white wine
2 pounds littleneck clams, scrubbed and soaked to remove the sand
Directions
Heat the olive oil in a Dutch Oven over medium-high. Add onion, carrot, celery, and garlic. Sauté 10 minutes. Add the red pepper flakes, bay leaf, Italian seasoning, fish stock, and tomatoes. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to a simmer the sauce for about 30 minutes.
Add the wine to a large deep skillet and bring to a boil. Add the clams, turn the heat to a simmer and cover the pan. Remove the clams as they open to a covered bowl. Discard any clams that do not open. Strain the juices in the skillet through a fine mesh colander. Set aside the clams and the strained cooking liquid.
Next add the fish pieces and shrimp to the tomato sauce, pushing them down into the liquid a little. Cover the pot and simmer for 4 minutes. Add the scallops and simmer for 2 minutes. Add the opened clams and strained wine and heat for a minute or two.
Immediately scoop the stew into large bowls, garnish with chopped parsley. Serve with Italian bread.
There was a time when seafood stews and chowders were the food of the poor. Fishermen would make a stew out of leftover bits of seafood, tails or heads. Seafood, today, can be quite expensive. To keep the cost down buy local varieties of seafood and those that are on sale. Combining easy to find fish fillets with small amounts of shrimp or clams creates a rich blend of flavor without costing too much money. Adding an assortment of fresh vegetables, simple herbs and seasonings can make endless combinations for seafood soups or stews. If you have fish stock, then use it in place of the chicken broth. I rarely have it and I like the taste of chicken broth in the recipe. Some cooks use bottled clam broth, but I find that on the salty side. The vinegar helps to perk up all the flavors in the stew.
This stew creates a hearty meal that can be prepared in advance of the dinner hour. A salad and toasted crostini slices can be good sides, if you think you need them. You can use this recipe as a basic model in which to add seafood and seasonal vegetables that you like to use. Give it a try for a dinner out of the ordinary.
Seafood Stew
Ingredients
3 tablespoons butter, divided
1 garlic clove, minced
1 large shallot, diced
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped celery
1 thin carrot, diced
1/2 cup diced red bell pepper
2 cups cauliflower, cut into small florets
½ cup diced rutabaga (or potato)
2 cups homemade or store-bought low-sodium chicken broth
1 teaspoon seafood (Old Bay) seasoning
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (chili)
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 large plum tomato, seeded and diced
3 lbs firm boneless fish fillets (such as halibut, cod, red snapper, sea bass, grouper), cut into small cubes
8 oz medium shrimp, shelled, deveined and tails removed
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup minced fresh parsley
Directions
In a large saucepan over medium heat, melt 2 tablespoon butter. Add the onion, shallot and garlic. Saute for a minute or two and them add the carrot, celery and bell pepper. Cook until the vegetables are tender, 3-4 minutes. Add the rutabaga and cauliflower. Stir into the vegetables. Pour in the chicken broth and bring to a simmer. Cover the pan and cook the vegetables until the rutabaga and cauliflower are tender. Remove the cover and add the: salt, pepper, chili flakes, seafood seasoning, thyme, tomato and vinegar. Sir well.
Add the cream, fish cubes and shrimp. Cook stirring the mixture gently for 4-5 minutes or until the fish and shrimp are cooked. Add the parsley and remaining tablespoon butter, heating until the butter is incorporated. Serve in large individual pasta bowls.
