Cook | Fish Stew

Somewhere In Between a Cioppino & a Bouillabaisse

I love seafood. A tiered platter of briny crustaceans, shells shimmering, their saline tang matched perfectly with crisp French fries and the unctuous richness of mayonnaise, is abundance distilled. Add a filthy dirty martini—a cold, briny slap of vodka, its edge softened by the plushness of blue cheese-stuffed olives—and I am undone. The meal becomes not just sustenance, but a moment of surrender, each bite and sip unfurling layers of contentment until joy is the only thing left.

I usually never make meals with shellfish at home. Several reasons come to mind. For starters, we live in Kansas City, home of meat and potatoes. Langoustines hardly beg to be grilled and slathered with parsley butter here.

Being landlocked like we are, acquiring an abundance of fresh seafood isn’t exactly easy, nor is it affordable. Beyond the locality of my little ocean-dwelling friends, I prefer to reserve such delicacies for our weekly standing date-night. It’s then, with Andrew, that I tend to indulge in things I dare not make at home—like shellfish, well most shellfish.

is that I prefer to eat such delicacies outside of our home, reserving these delights for Andrew and my weekly standing date-night, whereupon I indulge in things I dare not make at home, like shellfish.

Can I pry open an oyster? You bet. But it’s way more fun sitting bellied up at the bar with an ice cold martini in hand, waiting on just dropped fries to make their way to our plates, steaming and salty and ready to be devoured. Other things I don’t make at home are not limited to but indulge: seafood towers, French fries, good bread, pastries of any kind, sushi, bagels, cured meats and anything sous vide. The professionals simply make these things way better than I can, and why mess with perfection?

What do I make at home? Nearly everything else. And as I mentioned above, while shellfish isn’t something I cook with often, there’s one dish I’ll make again and again, especially in the wintertime when it’s fridged and I begin to miss the sea and all things summery: fish stew.

This isn’t quite a Cioppino, the San Franciscan seafood stew brimming with with clams, shrimp, mussels, crab, and white fish in a flavorful herbed tomato broth. Nor is it a Bouillabaisse, its less tomatoey Provençal cousin—a poor man’s dish perfumed with saffron, fennel, and hints of orange zest. I adore both.

This stew, one I return to often, sits somewhere in between the two, a comforting dish for a winter’s day. Paired with crusty sourdough bread, transport you to somewhere warmer, somewhere simpler, somewhere by the sea.