Interested????? Do you like seafood???? Baby it’s cold outside…and this definitely hits the spot. 🙂
When I first started the blog in 2012, I did a post on Cioppino. Today’s post is an updated cioppino recipe from me getting carried away at the market like I am prone to do. Also, I wanted to include the step by step photos and a really nice plating shot. With this much effort, you might as well do a new post as opposed to simply updating an old post. Hence, Cioppino Redux it is. 🙂 This is definitely a keeper.
You see, cioppino is one of my favorite soups but I really love soups. Of course, when I was cooking professionally, my favorite things were soups and sauces. To some, it’s perfectly cooked meat. Others are bakers and a perfect cake or loaf of bread is where it’s at. Others think garde manger is the cat’s meow. The list goes on. To me, soups and sauces are the epitome of cooking, especially when the weather gets cold, like now, which brings us to the reason for this post.
Surprisingly, we had a very early cold snap this year with freezing weather no less. Given September and October were unseasonably warm, soups were really not a menu item. With the cold snap, Baby Lady asked me to make soup. Specifically, she requested I make cioppino because she loves cioppino even more than me. Also, it’s low in carbs so it’s on Quickstep’s diet. Because I generally don’t keep cioppino ingredients on hand, this required a trip to the market to see what they had in stock. So, braving the cold, off I went. There were so many fresh goodies I got carried away with myself. The net out was 2 gallons of delicious cioppino, enough to feed 16 people. 😮 Like I said, I got a little carried away with myself. To make it manageable for a family, cut the recipe in half. Regardless, this is a great recipe that will definitely please and this is what we did.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 2 onions, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 cups fresh parsley, chopped
- 2 (28-ounce) cans chef cut tomatoes
- 6 cups shrimp stock
- 4 bay leaves
- 1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- 1 Tbsp fresh oregano, chopped
- 2 cups water
- 2 cups white wine
- 2 pounds large shrimp, peeled and deveined
- 1-1/2 pounds scallops
- 2 lbs littleneck clams, cleaned and purged
- 2 lbs mussels, debearded, cleaned and purged
- 1 lb lump crabmeat
- 1 pt shucked oysters
- 1-1/2 pounds whitefish, cubed
Instructions
Add butter to a large pot.
along with the olive oil.
Over medium-low heat, melt butter then add the onions,
garlic,
and parsley.
Cook slowly, stirring occasionally until onions are soft. Do not caramelize the onions. When soft, add the tomatoes
shrimp stock,
bay leaves,
basil,
thyme,
oregano,
water,
and wine.
Stir to incorporate, cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Now recently, Baby Lady bought me some boiling bags and this gave me the perfect opportunity to use them. You see, Baby Lady doesn’t like to play with her food during dinner. This means the clams and mussels must be shelled and added to the soup when it is ready. If you’re like Baby Lady, these boiling bags are perfect. So, while the liquid is at a nice simmer, add the clams
and the mussels
Cover and let the clams and mussels cook in the liquid until they open completely, roughly 8 minutes. When open, remove the mussels
and the clams from the liquid.
Shell the mussels and the clams reserving 2 clams and 2 mussels per bowl for plating. Things are going to happen pretty quickly now because the seafood will cook very quickly. Bring the liquid back to a boil, reduce to a simmer and stir in the shrimp,
scallops,
fish,
and crabmeat.
Cover and simmer roughly four minutes as you don’t want to overcook the shrimp and scallops. Remove from heat and add the cooked mussels and clams so they can reheat
and add the oysters at the end so they just warm through without cooking.
Put 2 each of the previously cooked and reserved clams and mussels in the bottom of a bowl. Ladle cioppino into bowls over the clams and mussels
Serve & enjoy. 🙂
REMCooks 
This is a wonderful seafood soup Richard, and it certainly deserves this updated post. I love all the different types of seafood, adding all the flavor (clam juice, mussel juice, shrimp stock), and not overcooking the seafood. (PS funny typo — don’t think WordPress even existed in 2002…)
Thanks, Stefan. The flavor on this is wonderful. Because of the amount of shellfish and the bivalves, the soup has a wonderful sweetness to it that pairs beautifully with the tomatoes. As for 2002, well…I fixed it. 😀 Thanks for catching it.
BTW-did you notice???? No chiles. 😀 😀 😀
😀
I had noticed that you make it just like I would.
Although that doesn’t necessarily mean no chiles — some Italian seafood soup recipes include peperoncino.
Lovely looking seafood Richard. I cooked a seafood paella over the weekend. Post to follow. I have to say, that is one huge pot you use. Saucepan envy!
Thanks, Conor. When Knothead lived in Maine, Baby Lady and I went to visit. I bought her a 17″ paella pan that she has yet to use. We have an outdoor copper fire pit that is perfect for cooking the paella. The problem is it feeds 20 people and we haven’t figured out a time to invite that many people for dinner. 😮 As for the cocotte, we found this at William-Sonoma 2 years ago after Christmas on sale for $ US 249. It generally sells for $ US 369 so $ US 249 was a steal. More importantly, Baby Lady wanted it. and anything the Baby Lady wants, she gets. 😀 You know how that goes. 😉
Looking forward to the paella post.
My Goodness! Look at the size of that POT! 😀 What a wonderful seafood soup/dish. I’m jealous, seriously. I could slurp that up all day long. Bravo! I never get to cook that kind of food here with “picky” daughter, although my hubby would love it! I just never get the chance to do any seafood cooking on the random last-minute nights my daughter won’t be home for dinner.
Thanks Kathryn. Sorry to hear your daughter doesn’t like seafood. That really bites when you live in the Pacific Northwest with the abundance of fresh, affordable seafood you have there.
As for the pot, it’s a Staub 13-1/2 qt cocotte. When we first got it I put a 5 lb pork shoulder in it to braise it for some Mexican food meals. The 5 lb pork should looked very small in the pot. 😮 Even with 8 qts of cioppino, it looked pretty empty. I generally use it when I am making a large batch of stock with 5 or 6 chicken carcasses. Then, it’s full to the brim. 🙂
Well it is good to hear it gets used! Yes, I have a 15-quart water canner pot that I use to make turkey stock whenever we cook a rather large turkey. I use chicken stock up so fast I don’t usually accumulate that many chicken carcasses between batches! 😀
Fantastic recipe Richard! I might need to win lotto before I can afford all that seafood though. What a fantastic aquisition those boil in bags are. I presume they are made of un bleached cotton and are reusable
Hi, Sandra. Thanks for the nice compliment. 🙂 I priced out the cost of the soup and it wasn’t too bad. It worked out to roughly $US 7.50 per 1 pint serving – which is a lot of soup. It’s an expensive home cooked meal but was cheaper than the steak we had the following night or the blackened red fish the night after that. The price of food has really gone up.
As for the “Boil ‘n Wraps” they come in packets of 3 bags and Baby Lady got 2 packets for $US 6.00; so, they’re $US 1.00 per bag. They are made out of loose cheesecloth and are not reusable. Nonetheless, they work great.
Beautiful! I love those boiling bags. I’m thinking of getting for stocking stuffers. Use them even when I make chicken stock with a whole chicken. My married kids are moving to Fort Worth, so maybe we can meet up again. I love paella!!!
Hi Mimi. I’m sure having your married kids close to home will be a joy. Life has seriously changed for us with the oldest and youngest sons back home but let us know when you are coming to town and let’s see if we can work something out. 😀
well they’re moving from tulsa so i’m a little sad about the increased distance (I’m in Tulsa right now) but i love fort worth and dallas and will be visiting as often as I’m welcome. At 2 months Charlotte doesn’t know me quite yet, but I certainly want her to know me! Enjoy your puppies! Hide the shoes!!!
that looks amazing! it would be perfect on these chillier CA days! may have to give it a try when we have people over, since it’s a little much for just two people 😉 btw, we want more puppy pictures! 🙂
Thanks Andreea. It does make a lot of soup, even when you cut the recipe by half.
As for the puppies, I keep adding the puppy photos to the original post but if you want to see the puppy photos I keep a steady supply of them on my Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/richard.e.mcgary?fref=ts Friend me on Facebook and you will get a steady supply of puppy photos and videos.
Recently, the little rascals got in my garden. What the first freeze didn’t kill (winter lettuce), they dug up. The soil is so friable it’s not hard to dig up anything and it took no time at all for them to dig down 14 inches.
Lovely, soo…
Looks incredible! Also, loving the new look of the blog 🙂
So happy to see this post. I love cioppino, but the Staub brought me here. I just ordered the 8.75qy oval and whilst not the grand daddy you have, this will do until Staub has a clearance sale on those. Aren’t those pots amazing!?!
Thank you, we love our Staub but also waited for it to come on sale. Hope you look around and enjoy some of the other recipes.
I’m definitely looking around. BTW, what’s the size of your Staub?
We have a 9 quart dutch oven.
Weird, I have a 9qt too but yours looks much deeper.