Cioppino

Dean requested Cioppino for his birthday meal. I've heard of the dish but never had it myself so I was up for the challenge of making it. I went online and found this recipe by Giada De Laurentiis for Cioppino. It was fairly easy to make and very tasty!

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large fennel bulb, thinly sliced (it was labeled sweet anise at the store)
  
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3 large shallots, chopped
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 4 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 3/4 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper flakes, plus more to taste
• 1/4 cup tomato paste
• 1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes in juice
• 1 1/2 cups dry white wine
• 5 cups fish or chicken stock
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 pound mussels, scrubbed, debearded
• 1 pound uncooked large shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 1 pound scallops
  
• 1 1/2 pounds assorted firm-fleshed fish fillets such as halibut or salmon, cut into 2-inch chunks

Heat the oil in a very large pot over medium heat. Add the fennel, onion, shallots, and salt and saute until the onion is translucent, about 10 minutes.


Add the garlic and 3/4 teaspoon of red pepper flakes, and saute 2 minutes.

Stir in the tomato paste. Add tomatoes with their juices, wine, fish or chicken stock and bay leaf.

Cover and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat to medium-low. Cover and simmer until the flavors blend, about 30 minutes.

Add the mussels to the cooking liquid. Cover and cook until the mussels begin to open, about 5 minutes

Add the scallops, shrimp and fish. Simmer gently until the fish and shrimp are just cooked through, and the clams are completely open, stirring gently, about 5 minutes longer (discard any clams and mussels that do not open).

While at the grocery store, the check out lady asked what I was going to do with the fennel. She said she never cared for the flavor of black licorice but tried fennel once and became a fan. I too had never tried fennel because I am not a fan of black licorice but was excited none-the-less to try it out in this recipe. She wished me luck with the meal and added that Cioppino is not complete without a nice crunchy bread to soak up the juice. Luckily we had bread left over from Dean's party from the night before.

Greg and I bought the seafood at Costco the day we made the recipe. Next time we need seafood, we'll go to Ranch 99 for our seafood needs. Half the mussels didn't open or they were already cracked when I went to wash them off. Very disappointing to say the least.

Overall it turned out great. I will definitely try this meal again and change up the seafood ingredients to add a different taste to the dish.

Egg Drop Soup with Corn

There's nothing like a nice warm bowl of soup when you have a cold. During half time of the Rose Bowl game (Buckeyes won in case you haven't heard!) I made a pot of Egg Drop Soup with Corn. It's pretty basic so I winged the recipe.

Egg Drop Soup with Corn
6 cups of water
4 tablespoons of chicken bouillon (can use less sodium version)
1/4 tsp ground ginger
2 cloves minced garlic
1 can of corn (undrained)
6 additional tbs of water
3 tbs of cornstarch
3 eggs
soy sauce to taste

• Put the 6 cups of water, chicken bouillon, ginger and garlic into a pot and bring to a boil. As the water gets hot, it melts the garlic so it dissolves into the soup.
• Once it is boiling, turn it down to medium and add a can of corn, undrained.
• In a cup, mix together the 6 tbs of water with the 3 tbs of cornstarch. If you like it thicker add more cornstarch. If you like it thinner, use less. A 2 liquid to 1 cornstarch ratio works well to dissolve the cornstarch. Make sure it is mixed well because no one likes lumps.
  
• Add cornstarch slurry to pot and mix for a minute.
  
• At this point you can taste the soup and see if it needs any soy sauce. I find that with using regular chicken bouillon it is plenty salty.
  
• Now crack the 3 eggs into a separate cup and break the eggs as if making scrambled eggs. Once beaten, add to the pot. As you are adding the eggs, make sure to slowly stir in a figure 8 motion with the spoon so the eggs don't clump up into one blob. The figure 8 motion helps the egg form ribbons.

• Turn off heat and serve!
  

I've had this soup many times in Chinese restaurants and feel the corn adds another dimension to the dish. I'm all about texture in foods so the corn does this for me.