Lazy Man’s Ciopinno Recipe

So we've seen pictures of those big bowls of seafood stew at restaurants, right, especially along the Pacific and Mediterranean coasts? Ciopinno is a sight to be seen, an outright seafood spectacle: broth-filled bowls overflowing with fresh mussels and fresh clams cracked open, crab legs hanging over the side.

That's ciopinno [pronounced, at least to my American ear, tchee-uh-PEEN-yo] and it just sounds like an Italian seafood stew, right? And in a sense it is: the story goes that an Italian immigrant invented the "first" ciopinno in San Francisco the late 1800s. (I can't help but wonder: how do we know these things?!)

But you maybe also remember the communal stew pot in The Old Man and the Sea, the fishermen tossing in contributions when the luck was good. I imagine that pot as broad and shallow with short legs, its contents kept a-simmer with hot coals and a few licks of flame beneath. And somehow a big pot strikes me as the more likely way that ciopinno was "invented" – a fish stew that emerged organically over centuries, claiming an abundance of sea creatures, from abalone to crab to mussels and octopus, whatever came up in nets and traps, the catch of the day but perhaps not the finest parts, perhaps instead the throw-away bits plus a few choice parts.

A Lazy Man's Ciopinno, it's all the seafood-stew goodness without the drama, without the effort of digging clam meat from shells and cracking open crab legs.

And it's also one of this Midwestern landlubber's oldest recipes, often a "special occasion" food since good fresh fish and fresh seafood travel many miles to arrive here in the middle of a big country, an equation that exacts both distance and price premium.

So many years, I serve Lazy Man's Ciopinno on Christmas Eve with a loaf of crusty bread and a green salad topped with colorful chopped vegetables, at the same time a simple and festive meal. While the Ciopinno tastes rich, it's actually high in protein and very low in calories and carbs – so go ahead, we do, splurge on a Christmas Eve dessert!

Ciopinno is also a fine choice for Fridays during Lent when many of us don't eat meat but forgo parish fried-fish fries.

For special occasions, I invest in fresh shrimp and fish (and some times if I'm feeling adventurous, scallops and whatever else looks good in the fish case) but I also have good luck with grocery-store frozen shrimp and fish. When I visit my dad in northern Minnesota during the summer, fresh walleye and other fresh-water lake fish are great substitutes for salt-water fish and shrimp. I've only had one bad pot of Lazy Man's Ciopinno, an unfortunate dinner choice on a Colorado ski trip when not a single nearby grocery stocked fish or shrimp, fresh or frozen. Out of desperation, we substituted spelt, an unfortunate choice. I don't recommend it although my skiing buddies still love to tell the story, their eyes rolling at the absurdity and catching me in a disastrous meal.

Want to learn more? More about ciopinno from The New York Times and Saveur.

Kitchen Parade is written by second-generation food columnist Alanna Kellogg and features fresh, seasonal dishes for every-day healthful eating and occasional indulgences. Do you serve meatless dishes during Lent? Share a favorite recipe via recipes@kitchen-parade.com. How to print a Kitchen Parade recipe. If you like Kitchen Parade, you're sure to like my food blog about vegetable recipes, too, A Veggie Venture. "Like" Kitchen Parade on Facebook!