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Recipes

Cioppino - San Francisco Style Seafood Stew

By Mark Lawrence

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Cioppino ("Chee'o-pee-no") is a San Francisco dish, a seafood stew made in an old-world Italian style. It's comparible to a bouillabaisse or a Manhattan chowder. You can make it as mild or spicy as you like. The more varieties of fish and shellfish, the better.

Ingredients
1/4 cup olive oil
1 medium to large onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 green pepper, diced
8 oz clam juice
14 oz chicken stock
1 cup wine or cooking sherry
24 oz flavored tomato sauce (Ragu, etc)
1/2 tsp dried hot red pepper flakes (optional)
1 bay leaf
1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro (optional)
1/2 tsp oregano
2 to 3 lbs various fish and shellfish

Directions
  1. Heat olive oil. Saute onion, garlic, green pepper, red pepper, oregano, thyme over moderate heat until soft but not browned.

  2. Add chicken stock, wine, tomatoes, tomato sauce, bay leaf, parsley. Bring to a boil.

  3. Reduce heat and simmer 30 minutes to one hour. This sauce can be refrigerated or frozen for later use.

  4. Add clams, oysters, crab, octopus, calimari, simmer covered 10-15 minutes.

  5. Add salmon, halibut, whitefish, shrimp, prawns, scallops, simmer covered another 10 minutes.

  6. Remove from heat, stir in cilantro, serve.

Serve with bibs and lots of hot sour dough french bread.

To mince the garlic: place the garlic cloves on a cutting board, and place the flat of a large chef's knife on a clove, then hit the other side with your fist. Peal the clove (it will be easy now). Place the pealed cloves near each other on the cutting board, hold the tip of the chef's knife on the board with one hand about 3" away from the cloves, and rock the blade up and down repeatedly. The edge of the knife is always touching the cutting board, you can't possibly get cut.