Cioppino

BY BILL ST. JOHN

Each year during this season, we whip up batches of Cioppino Broth so that you can finish a big bowl of steaming ruby awesomeness with your own choices of shellfish, seafood, or firm-fleshed fish from our seafood case. The broth is a heady mix of tomato, vegetable stock, various chopped vegetables (leek, onion, celery, bell pepper, fennel, and garlic) and several aromatic herbs and spices (bay, oregano, thyme, and cayenne—just a whisper). Here are easy directions for a large serving for one person; multiply as your table requires.

Ingredients

• 1 cup Marczyk Fine Foods Cioppino Broth (usually available around the Christmas holiday)

• 1 hefty slice Marczyk Fine Foods baguette, cut longways

• 1 garlic clove

• Oleoestepa extra-virgin olive oil from Spain

• 2 fresh clams

• 4 fresh mussels

• 4 chunks firm-fleshed fish (cod, salmon, ocean perch, you decide)

• 3 large shrimp, peeled and deveined, tails left on

• Chopped flat-leaf parsley; black pepper

Directions

Begin by heating up the cioppino broth in a pot adequate in size to fit it and however many of the remaining ingredients you are preparing. Take the garlic clove and rub it alongside the entire open slice of baguette. Brush the slice with olive oil and toast the baguette (in a grill pan, over a fire, or underneath the broiler) until it is nicely browned. Place it, browned side up, in the center of a large, low bowl.

When the broth is slowly boiling, add the clams, stirring in, and cook for 5 minutes, with the pot covered but the lid slightly ajar. Then stir in the mussels, and cook for 5 minutes more; then add the shrimps and firm-fleshed fish and stir again. Simmer gently for another 5 minutes.

To serve, check that the shellfish has opened (discard any that remain unopened) and ladle the broth and fish pieces into the bowl, surrounding the baguette slice. Garnish with the chopped parsley and freshly cracked black pepper.