Cioppino

Degree of Difficulty: Borderline Intermediate
Prep Time: 15-20 min
Total Cook Time: 45-55 min

When the wife and I were in the San Francisco area in December 2008, we were hoping to visit Duarte’s Tavern, located in the small, coastal town of Pescadero, about 45 min away. Duarte’s has quite a few dishes that they are well known for, including their Cioppino, an Italian-influenced fish stew that was developed in San Francisco in the 1800s. We never made it to Duarte’s so in an effort to bring SF to Boston, I made Cioppino tonight. Having never made Cioppino before, I did a little research and made a few tweaks to a recipe I found. This is what I came up with:

2 large onions – diced
4 garlic cloves – minced
2 bay leaves
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tbsp cumin
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
4 tbsp olive oil
1 green bell pepper – diced
2 tbsp tomato paste
1 1/2 cups red wine (it doesn’t really matter what kind)
1 cup bottled clam juice
2 cups shrimp stock (I happened to have this in my freezer leftover from an earlier experiment. Any low-sodium chicken stock or chicken broth will work fine).
1 28oz can whole plum tomatoes – these should be chopped and all of the juices should be retained. The chopping part will be messy so be prepared.
3 tbsp finely chopped basil
3 tbsp finely chopped Italian flat leaf parsley

As for the seafood, just like the wine, it doesn’t really matter what you use or even how much you use. It’s totally up to you and what you like. I was feeling a bit frugal so I used 2 ingredients that were both on sale (and wound up tasting great):

1lb haddock fillets – cut into 1 inch cubes or pieces (if haddock isn’t available or not your preferred fish of choice, any white-fleshed fish will do)
1lb bag of Trader Joe’s Seafood Blend (this is sold frozen and contains small calamari pieces, shrimp, and scallops. Make sure you defrost this before using it).

Here’s the handsome collection of ingredients:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the fun part, first you’ll want to find a good cooking implement to use. I went right for the dutch oven but you can use any big and semi-tall metal pot. If you go that route, make sure you keep an extra close eye on everything, especially when you cook the tomato paste and reduce the wine, so that things don’t stick to the bottom of the pot or worse, burn.

Heat the dutch oven over medium heat for a few minutes, then add the olive oil. Let that heat up for a few seconds, then add the onions, garlic, bay leaf, red pepper flakes, oregano, cumin, salt and pepper and cook for about 5 minutes. You want the onions to soften and turn translucent a bit, but not become totally browned. It will look like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next, add the green pepper and tomato paste and cook for a 2-3 min, stirring fairly constantly. You don’t want the tomato paste to burn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pour in the red wine, stir everything well, and turn the heat up to medium-high. You want the wine to come to a boil. Once it starts boiling, let everything cook for at least 5 min and no more than 10 min. You want the amount of wine in the pot to reduce by half to really concentrate the flavors. Be sure to stir frequently to avoid winding up with a sticky or burnt mess. Here is what things should like right after the wine has been added and after it has reduced (the steam is normal, I assure you).

Before reducing:

 

 

 

 

 

 

After reducing (the 2 photos don’t look much different, but you will notice that the mixture becomes quite a bit thicker after reducing):

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the wine has reduced, add the tomatoes and the juices from the tomatoes, the clam juice, and the stock/broth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bring this all to a boil. Immediately after it comes to a boil, cover it, reduce the heat to low, and let it simmer for 30 min. After 30 min, taste it and add more salt/pepper if needed.

Add all of the seafood to the pot, give it a stir, turn the heat back up to medium, and cover. It should take 5-7 min for the seafood to cook through. When the seafood has cooked (the shrimp will be pink), remove the bay leaves, stir in the parsley and basil, and dish the cioppino out in a bowl.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The wife made some fresh garlic bread to serve along with the stew…I recommend you do the same. I’d say this recipe makes enough to serve 6.