Day 30: Sicilian Seafood Stew

In class we learned how to make soffrito. Soffrito is an Italian base of vegetables cooked down in olive oil really slowly until they get all melty and aromatic and delicious. Its one of those things that will really just bring any stew or sauce to the next level. Typically soffrito is made with mirepoix (onions, celery and carrots) but you can really use any aromatics you want. Here we used onions and fennel. Tonight, we used it as the main flavor for a simple Italian seafood stew. There wasn’t an official recipe we followed, which made things kind of fun - our chef just told us the general plan we were going to follow based on some methods we had learned already (making stock, making aioli, steaming fish etc.). This class also  confirmed that seafood is nothing to be scared about. I’ve always kind of shied away from it, especially shellfish, because it intimidated me. But for this dish, the fish and clams just steam in a delicious bath of melty vegetables and stock (with lots of white wine, yum) for about 5 minutes until they’re cooked. Couldn’t be easier. It’s also a great one-pot dish! In class we made fish stock, which takes about 30 minutes. Obviously if you’re able to do this, that's great. But, it’s not totally reasonable to think that everyone just has a whole fish lying around with the goal of using the bones for stock. To sub for fish stock, you could do one of the following:

• Use chicken stock with a little bit of white wine added to it.
• Use vegetable stock with a little bit of white wine added to it (can you tell wine is the key??)

If you're able to get your hands on some clam juice to add to the above, that would be even better! If so, reduce the clam juice down a little bit so you get a really aromatic sauce.

Sicilian Seafood Stew

Serves 2 

Ingredients:

• ½ cup diced onion
• ½ cup diced fennel
• 1/4 cup of olive oil (or enough to coat the pan)
• Red pepper flakes
• Saffron
• 1 cup of chopped canned tomatoes (San Marzano are best)
• About 1 cup of fish stock (give or take a half cup)
• Clams (as many as your heart desires! We had about 10-12 in each pan)
• 10 oz flaky white fish (we used halibut)
• 1/2 cup Israeli couscous
• Aoili (optional)

Method:

1. The goal is to cook them fairly slowly so they stay super sweet and soft - you don’t want the vegetables to brown.
2. After the vegetables have softened quite a bit and have started to get translucent, add your tomatoes. Cook for another 5-10 minutes and season again lightly.
3. Once your tomatoes have cooked down and your soffrito has turned a nice red color, add a pinch of red pepper flakes and a pinch of saffron. The color and the aromatics will really start to come out now.
4. At this point most of the oil should have absorbed and you should have a pretty cohesive sauce. If there is too much residual oil, you can drain that off. Set the soffrito aside.
5. Time to cook the couscous! Add the couscous in a small pot with a ½ cup plus 2 tbsp water,  pinch of salt and some olive oil. Cook for about 8 minutes or until the water is absorbed. Fluff.
6. In the same saucepan you used for the soffrito in, add your clams, fish, two big dollops of soffrito, the couscous, and a cup of fish stock. Cook on medium heat, covered, for about 5 minutes or until all the clams have opened. Move the contents of the pan around occasionally so they absorb all the flavors equally.
7. Serve with a small dollop of aioli if you feeling fancy!