How to Cook Ciopinno

Serves: 6

Preparation time: 5 mins

Cooking time: 65 mins

Ingredients needed to make ciopinno:

• ½ lb salmon, skinned and chopped into 2’’ pieces
• ½ lb halibut, chopped into 2’’ pieces
• ½ ld cod fish, chopped into 2’’ pieces
• 1 lb mussels, scrubbed and debearded
• 1 lb manila or turtleneck clams, scrubbed
• 1 lb large shrimps, peeled and deveined
• 3 large shallots, chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 large fennel bulb, thinly sliced
• 1 can (28 oz) diced tomatoes, juice reserved
• ½ tsp dried red pepper flakes, crushed
• 1 ½ cups dry white wine
• ¼ cup tomato paste
• 1 bay leaf
• 5 cups fish stock
• 2 tsp kosher salt, to taste
• Handful of flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
• 3 tbsp olive oil

Cooking instructions for ciopinno:

• Drizzle oil in a large stockpot and heat it over moderate flame.
• Throw in the onion, shallots, fennel, along with a dash of salt and saute them for about 10 minutes , stirring occasionally, until the onions turn lucid.
• Stir in the garlic, followed by the red pepper flakes and stir –fry them for another couple of minutes .
• Pour in the tomato paste, along with all the contents of the can of diced tomatoes and fish stock.
• Add a splash of white wine and stir them all together until properly mixed.
• Drop a bay leaf, cover and increase the heat to bring the soup to gentle boil.
• Now, lower the heat to moderately low flame and continue to simmer, covered, for about half an hour.
• Drop the mussels and clams into the simmering soup, put the lid back on and continue to cook for another 5 minutes or until the shells open up.
• In case you are using turtleneck clams, add them before the mussels and cook the broth for about 10 minutes before adding the mussels and simmering it further for another 5 minutes.
• Stir in the shrimp as well as fish chunks and simmer for 5 more minutes or until they are cooked through.
• Adjust the seasonings and stir in the chopped parsley right before removing it from heat.
• Spoon it into serving soup bowls and top it up with more red pepper flakes to spike up the heat.
• Drop small homemade croutons into the soup and serve warm.

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons