Cioppino (Italian American seafood stew)

Pronounced (cho-PEA-no). The basics of a Ciopinno is a tomato sauce that has garlic onions and red or white wine, and of course fresh fish and seafood. It can be made with the shell fish served in the shell, or with the shells removed. Though some diners prefer not to have to muss their hands in eating soup, the shells do add to the overall flavor of any fish soup recipe and allow for a more appealing and realistic Cioppino presentation.

While cioppino may sound fancy, it’s a stew that comes together fairly quickly — faster, in fact, than many meat-based stews. The broth just needs a quick simmer before you toss in the seafood to quickly do the final round of cooking. It’s completely doable for a dinner party (you can make it ahead up to the point where the seafood goes in) or for a cozy night in.

As with so many delicious Italian foods, Cioppino has an interesting history that developed from making the most of what you had on hand. As one story explains, the genesis of the fish stew came from Italian immigrants who lived and fished off the San Francisco coast in the late 1800s. If a fisherman didn’t catch anything that day, he would take a pot around to other fishermen, who would toss in any seafood they could spare. The mixture of fish, clams, mussels, shrimp, etc. would become the stew for the night. The tasty staple eventually become popular in Italian restaurants around the San Francisco area and then spread across the country from there. Linguists have pointed to the connection between the northern Italian word of ciuppin which means “to make soup from fish”. The seafood stew is popular in Italy and called Cioppin or Cioppio, which is a Geonovesse version of the seafood stew cioppin.

What’s the Difference Between Cioppino and Bouillabaisse?

Bouillabaisse is a French seafood stew originating from fishermen in Marseille, made of a combination of local Mediterranean fish and other seafood. Both stews call for tomatoes, but you’ll find less in the saffron broth of bouillabaisse. Bouillabaisse also includes leeks and potatoes. Italian American-based cioppino contains seafood local to the San Francisco Bay Area cooked in a white wine and tomato broth. Cioppino is often served with sourdough bread; bouillabaisse is served with bread spread with rouille, a garlicky mayonnaise.

FG Note: I had a wonderful salmon steak at an Italian restaurant, Io E Tu, in Philadelphia, that had a wonderful rosé wine tomato sauce poured over the top. The sauce had shrimp, mussels, baby clams, and crab in it and tasted of tomatoes, crab meat, olive oil, herbs, and garlic, and it had lots of seafood flavor. The sauce seems very similar to this traditional seafood stew. I would leave out the anchovies and Worcestershire sauce, at least at first, and see if it needs them after tasting. Reviewers say the anchovies are what produces that deep delicious smokey flavor, and that leaving them out is a mistake.

Tips for Making Cioppino Seafood Stew

• Scrub the shells then soak the mussels and clams in a bowl of water with a few tablespoons of flour for 30 minutes, so the mussels and clams spew any sand that may be lurking in the shells. Nobody likes a mouthful of sand, except live mussels and clams. Rinse them before adding to the stew.
• If you prefer a cioppino that’s easy to eat, shell and remove the tails from the shrimp before cooking.
• It’s a mess to crack the shells of crab after they’ve been soaked in that lush tomato broth. If you decide to use crab, you can cut the legs in half lengthwise for your guests so the meat is easy to strip straight from the shell.
• Chose firm white fish, Firm white fish are often used in soups and stews because they hold their shape and don't disintegrate in the liquid, for instance: cod, catfish, halibut, orange roughy, red snapper, grouper, pollock
• The key to a good cioppino is a rich, flavorful seafood stock. Use clam broth, cook the shells from the shrimp and use instead of chicken broth called for in some recipes.