Nov-Dec-2015_Pg 11_no bleed

the Holiday Entertaining issue

Rob Barilleaux’s Cioppino Soup

“Fennel (finocchio) is very popular in Italian food, and one of the secrets to Rouses fresh Italian sausage. This fish stew is another great way to use it with seafood. You don’t have to add the squid, but I think it adds a nice flavor and texture.” —Rob, Rouses Marketing WHAT YOU WILL NEED

FOR THE STOCK 1½ quarts water 1 Pinch saffron FOR THE SOUP 3

pint (16 fluid ounces) clam juice

garlic cloves, minced

2

medium onions, chopped head fennel, sliced thin

1 1 1 1

tablespoon toasted fennel seed

bay leaf

teaspoon Rouses dried oregano

Mangia Bene! by Liz Williams, Director of the Southern Food & Beverage Museum M y Sicilian-born grandmother made the Feast of the Seven Fishes every year. She used fresh fish, shrimp, crabs, anything that came from the Gulf of Mexico, including American eel, which we caught in the waters of Chef Menteur Pass. American eels looks like snakes but taste like fish. She bartered for the rest of the meal. My great grandfather had been and my great uncles were butchers at the French Market, and they would trade offal from the pigs and cows they butchered for the bycatch of the fishermen at next stall.That’s how she got the squid, water snails and spiny lobsters she served, none of which were sold in the typical seafood market or at the French Market. When it came to the actual seven fishes, my grandmother was very broad in what she considered fish. Frogs, turtles, even crawfish weren’t officially classified as seafood back then. (Alligators didn’t make the official cut until 2010, when New Orleans Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond decreed that “yes, alligator is considered in the fish family.”)  She was also very broad in what she counted as “a” fish dish. An oyster counted as one fish, two oysters as two fish. Like most Sicilians, she changed the menu every year. And she didn’t always stop with seven fish. One year she served 15 because that’s how much seafood she had on hand. While I have yet to make my own Feast of the Seven Fishes for my husband, sons, daughter- in-law and granddaughter, Olivia (the most adventurous eater in the family), families from Sicily, Italy, to Little Italy (Independence, LA), serve the Feast of the Seven Fishes every Christmas Eve. Don’t be intimidated by the number: If you use my grandmother’s approach of one shrimp equals two fish, you can knock out the seven with one pot of gumbo! 

2

tablespoons tomato paste

1

28-ounce can whole plum tomatoes, crushed

2 cups dry white wine Handful fresh basil leaves, chopped 1 pound medium wild-caught Gulf shrimp, peeled and deveined 1

pound flaky white fish such as redfish or flounder

1 1 1

bag clams, scrubbed bag mussels, scrubbed

pound calamari, cut into 1-inch thick rings Rouses salt and black pepper HOW TO PREP

In a large pot, bring the water and clam juice to a boil. Season with saffron, reduce to a simmer, and let cook for 5 minutes. In a separate skillet, sweat garlic, onions, and fennel in olive oil with a pinch of salt. Add the fennel seed, bay leaf and oregano and cook for 1 minute. Pour in the tomato paste and crushed tomatoes and cook for another 3 minutes. Add wine and seafood stock and cook until reduced by half. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Add fish and cook for 5 minutes. Add mussels, clams, shrimp and calamari and cook until clams and mussels open up, about 3-5 minutes. Remove the bay leaf and season with salt and pepper. Ladle into bowls and serve with Rouses Italian bread.

50

MY ROUSES EVERYDAY NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2015