Earlier this week, my son Mark was elbows deep in our freezer looking for his baby back ribs. They were on the dinner menu for his day off along with garlic mashed potatoes and a cabbage sauté with a Granny Smith apple, butter and bacon fat. 

Mark has been dubbed the “King of Ribs” in our house. They are fall-off-the-bone delicious. This particular batch was marinated in his homemade, brown sugar mango-pear bar-b-que sauce. 

After he lathers the ribs with his marinade, he will throw them on the grill to scorch them with grill marks on the outside. He then wraps the ribs in aluminum foil and puts them in the oven for a six hour slow cook. That’s the key… low and slow.

Oops… sorry this post wasn’t supposed to be about the BBQ rib dinner. I went off on a tangent. You all know how I enjoy writing about food cooked in our house.

Anyway, while Mark was elbow deep in the freezer, he came across some frozen fish we had leftover, uncooked from Christmas; primarily, calamari tubes and tentacles, haddock, mussels and scallops. These had been vacuum sealed, and are air tight which preserves freshness.

When he told me about his “find”, the wheels in my mind started churning with excitement. Fridays Lenten dinner plans came to fruition. I just needed to purchase a couple of items and we’re cooking …

 CIOPPINO  - (chuh-pee-noh) 

This is an easy to make Italian-American fish stew. It’ll go from counter to table in less than one hour and is so hearty, yet very comforting.

All you need to authenticate this Italian meal is a fresh loaf of crusty Italian bread and a charcuterie board with a variety of olives and cheeses. 

The saltiness from the charcuterie will compliment the richness from the cioppino, while the bread will be used to sop up this garlicky, tomato-wine-based broth goodness, leaving your plate sparkly clean (I still recommend putting it in the dishwasher). 

A bit of Cioppino history:

This Italian-American dish originated in the North Beach area of San Francisco in the late 1890’s by immigrant fishermen from Naples and Genoa. 

Legend has it, when an Italian fisherman came back to port empty-handed, he would walk around the neighborhood with a pot, so the other fishermen could “chip” in whatever they could. What ever ended up in the pot became that man's cioppino. 

It later became a staple and Italian restaurants in San Francisco ended up serving the dish in their restaurants. It is a combination of crab, clams, shrimp, scallops, squid, mussels and fish. The seafood is combined with fresh tomatoes in a wine sauce flavored with garlic and herbs, then served with toasted bread.

Lets cook our CIOPPINO :

INGREDIENTS -

• 4 tablespoons salted butter
• 1 medium spanish onion, diced
• 1 small fennel bulb, cored and diced
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• ½ teaspoon dried oregano
• ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• ¾ cup dry white wine
• 1 (28-ounce) can petite diced tomatoes
• 2 cups vegetable stock
• 2 cups clam juice
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves
• Kosher salt and black pepper
•  
• 12 little neck clams, scrubbed
• ½ pound mussels, scrubbed and debearded
• 1 pound cod or halibut filets, cut into 3/4-inch pieces
• ½ pound medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 8 large sea scallops
• 3/4 lb of calamari; tubes and tentacles 

My thought was that if I’m to make an old style, rustic Italian dinner, I’m going old school with my music. I thumbed through a hundred or so albums stacked in the shelves of a credenza looking for what I thought I still had, handed down from my parents… albums from the San Remo music festivals. BINGO… I had the 1965 and 1966 albums. I was so excited I still had them. What a treat. Little victories like this make me happy. 

Listening to these San Remo albums, I began cooking…

COOKING INSTRUCTIONS -

• Melt butter in a large stockpot or sauce pot over medium high heat, being careful not to burn it.
•  
• Add onion and fennel. Stir occasionally, until tender, about 8 minutes, onions should be translucent. 
• Stir in tomato paste, garlic, oregano and red pepper flakes until fragrant, about 2 minutes. 
•  
• Stir in wine, diced tomatoes, vegetable stock, clam juice and bay leaf. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer until flavors have blended, about 15 minutes; season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Note: At this point with 15 minutes of free time, pour the glass of wine. Swirl it slowly and softly sniff the aromas coming up the sides of your glass.

     •   Stir in clams and mussels. Reduce                                              
         heat to low; cover, with a tight-      
         fitting lid, and cook until the.        clams and mussels are just                                                                                                                 beginning to open, about 3-4 minutes.

• Stir in cod or halibut, shrimp and scallops. Reduce heat and simmer until cod or halibut, shrimp and scallops are just cooked through and clams and mussels have opened completely, about 4-6 minutes. 
• Discard any unopened clams.
• Stir in parsley; season with salt and pepper, to taste.

You now have a CIOPPINO to enjoy. Ladle the fish and broth into you soup bowl, pour a glass of wine, rip off a hunk of bread and dig in. 
 

Until next time, mangia bene ...