It’s time to lighten things up. As we exit the holidays, we officially enter bowl-food season. Rich and heavy holiday dinners—featuring cocktails and multiple courses, ribs and roasts, sauces and reductions—will take a New Year’s timeout, replaced by steaming bowls brimming with warm and nourishing soups and stews. And while meat is certainly welcome to join the bowl-fun, the lightness of seafood is a refreshing alternative. It’s time for a cioppino.
Cioppino (chuh-PEE-noh) is a San Francisco seafood stew that originated in the 1800s when the Italian and Portuguese fishermen chopped up leftovers from their daily catches to make a robust tomato-based soup. Its name is derived from the Italian term ciuppin, which means to chop. Wine is a key ingredient in the cioppino stock, and recipes gamely call for white or red, depending on the source. I prefer to use red wine, which adds more fruit and less acidity to the broth.
