No matter where I travel and how good the food is in a country I visit, I am always glad to be home cooking my own meals.
I was fed well in Singapore and Indonesia and really love the richness of the flavours in those countries, a reflection of the richness of their cultures. Chilli mud crab was my favourite with fried Asian bread used to sop up all the sauces.
I felt like seafood and something with a tomato base when I got home and thought to make a ‘ciopinno’. Various sources say that a ‘ciopinno’ is a fish stew cooked with tomatoes, wine, and spices, and associated at least since the 1930s with San Francisco, where it is still a specialty in many restaurants (1935). The word is Italian, from a Genoese dialect, ciuppin, for a fish stew, and the dish seems to have originated with the Italian immigrants of San Francisco, who often used the crabmeat available in the city’s markets.
Generally the seafood is cooked in broth and served in the shell, including the crab, which is often served halved or quartered
The dish can be served with toasted bread, either local sourdough or French bread. The bread acts as a starch, similar to a pasta, and is dipped into the sauce.
Ingredients
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 large fennel bulb, thinly sliced
1 onion, chopped
2 teaspoons salt
4 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 small chillies
1 jar Val Verde Passata
1/2 cups dry white wine
5 cups stock (fish or chicken)
1 packet Kinkawooka mussels (live and cleaned)
1 large fillet skinless boneless salmon (cut up in 2 inch chunks)
1 large snapper fillet (cut up)
2 handfuls of small prawns, peeled and deveined
- Heat the oil in a very large pot over medium heat. Add the fennel, onion, and salt and saute until the onion is translucent, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and chillis, and saute 2 minutes. Stir in Val Verde Passata. Add wine and stock. Cover and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat to medium-low. Cover and simmer until the flavors blend, about 30 minutes.
- Add the mussels to the cooking liquid. Cover and cook until mussels begin to open, about 5 minutes. Add the shrimp and fish. Simmer gently until the fish and shrimp are just cooked through, and the clams are completely open, stirring gently, about 5 minutes longer (discard any clams and mussels that do not open). Season the soup, to taste, with more salt and parsley.
- Ladle the soup into bowls and serve. Serves 4.
This post is brought to you in collaboration with Val Verde
