How to Make Giada’s Cioppino | Everyday Italian | Food Network

The holidays are filled with heavy food and lots of it. So this is a great alternative when you're having friends over during the holidays. I love to make this fish soup. And I'm going to start with the fennel. And what I love about fennel is the way it smells. It's a crisp, clean anise flavor. And it works so well with fish. I'm just going to add that in, a little bit of salt. We're going to salt each ingredient. And we're going to add the onion. Of course, onion, garlic, some shallots. They're all very light and clean flavors for this tropino, this fish soup. There we go, right in here. And you just want to cook the onions until they're soft. And by adding the salt to the vegetables, you're sort of drawing out all the natural moisture in them. And that'll help cook them down and soften them without browning them. And now some shallots. Alright, now we need to add a little bit of garlic. One, two, three, four. Perfect. And here we go. I'm actually going to add some spice and some heat. Add a little kick to our fish soup with some red pepper flakes. Want to make sure they're nice and red. They still have their heat. We're going to add a little bit of tomato paste. And the tomato paste is sort of intensely sweet, and it gives a nice depth of flavor and color. I'm just going to slowly make sure that we incorporate all of the tomato paste with the veggies. Okay, we're going to add some wine. White wine. And some canned tomatoes. It's plump and juicy. They're perfect. Add that in. Yeah. They're sweet. And the last thing we have to add is the fish stock. You can get fish stock in your local grocery store. Oh, one more thing. I've got to add a bay leaf. Just one. One bay leaf goes a long way. It's very strong. And if you add too many of these, it can make your soup, your stew, whatever you add it to, bitter. So you want to be careful. But it adds a nice, earthy flavor to the fish and to the soup. I'm going to let this simmer for 30 minutes, so all the flavors blend together. And then later on, I'm going to add all the fish. I am going to add the mussels and the clams. You want to make sure that all the clams and mussels open up. If they don't, you've got to toss them. In the meantime, let's cut up some halibut. And I've got two beautiful fillets of halibut here. What I love about the halibut and the salmon is they're firm-fleshed fish. The halibut is milder in flavor, and the salmon's a little oilier, so it kind of gives a great balance of flavors to the fish soup. Okay, let's see how the mussels and clams are doing. Ooh, they look beautiful. Look at that. Let me show you. See how it opened up? Perfect. We are ready to add the halibut and the salmon. Look how beautiful. It really does make for a beautiful, beautiful fish soup, and a really tasty one too. And of course, all of the shrimp. Just put those right in here. Make sure that they're sort of submerged in the broth. Ooh, that looks so good. So I'm going to season with a little bit of salt and red pepper. And now I just touched all that seafood, so I set aside a little salt and red pepper in different containers so that I don't dirty up or contaminate my original salt and pepper containers. A little bit of pepper. Perfect. I'm going to put the lid on. It's going to take about five minutes for this to cook. So what do you think of the fish, you guys? The soup and all. The fish is wonderful. It's halibut, salmon, and then clams, mussels, and shrimp.