hello this is chef john from food wishes
comm with Tuscan fish stew that's right
every morning along the beautiful coast
of Florence the fisherman returned from
the sea to share their catch some of
which is used in simple rustic garlic
and herb infused dishes like this and
while my grasp of Italian geography
might not be that strong my fish stew
game is and the recipe you're seeing
here today is very very loosely based on
a trip I took to Florence over 30 years
ago so with that let's go hang get
started and first up I'm gonna add some
beautiful end of summer cherry tomatoes
to this blender to which I'm gonna add a
bottle of clam juice or you could use
some fish stock if you have it but you
don't and what we'll do is go ahead and
blend this for about ten or fifteen
seconds until smooth and while you can
use any tomato product here I really do
like to cherry tomatoes for this because
they tend to be very sweet as well as
having a very fragrant intense tomato
flavor so those are the pros the cons
would be they have seeds and very very
tough skins which is why after we blend
this smooth we're gonna go ahead and
pass it through a strainer because all
we want is that sweet fragrant liquid
and not the aforementioned seeds and
tough skins which will hopefully be left
behind in the strainer so we'll go ahead
and press through all that liquid and we
should end up with something that's pink
foamy and borderline disturbing to look
at all right so yes that does not look
appetizing yet but don't worry that
color is caused by millions possibly
billions of air bubbles which as you'll
see will cook out and we're actually
gonna be left with something that has
quite a beautiful color and then once
that set will simply reserved it until
needed and we'll move on to the rest of
the ingredients most of which we will
add to this cold pan right now and that
will include some olive oil preferably
from Tuscany we also want to toss in a
little bit of onion and I'll be using
some green onions as well as a whole
bunch of sliced garlic and you could if
you wanted mince it or chop it but I
kind of like to look in the taste of the
sliced in here and it will also toss in
one anchovy fillet which is basically
salt with benefits and it will finish up
with some hot red pepper flakes so that
I don't have to use or even mention
cayenne and that's it we'll go ahead and
take that over to the stove and place
that on medium heat and we'll wait for
that to start soon
and once it does we'll cook that
stirring for a couple minutes just until
our garlic and onions start to soften up
a little bit but we don't necessarily
want a lot of color on the garlic so we
do want to be a little bit careful here
okay keep in mind they're gonna cook for
another 10 minutes or so once we add our
tomato broth basically all I'm doing
here is checking with the tip of the
spoon so I can kind of feel when those
garlic slices have gone from raw and
firm to something that's just starting
to get tender and then once we've
determined our veggies that cook long
enough we'll go ahead and carefully pour
in our tomato mixture and we'll stir
everything together and raise our heat
to medium-high because we want to bring
this up to a simmer and as this stuff
comes up to temperature
you'll notice that foams gonna dissipate
and that color should deepen beautifully
and in a few minutes it's gonna look
significantly less disturbing and then
once this mixture does start to bubble
we can go ahead and back our heat down
to medium and simmer this for just 10
minutes okay usually when we hear the
words do we think of long cooking times
this is not one of those recipes okay so
we'll adjust our heat and like I said
we'll let this simmer for about ten
minutes at which point we can introduce
whatever seafood we're gonna be using
which today for me is gonna be some
halibut and some peeled deveined shrimp
and you really can use any fish you want
I mean you are after all the Poseidon of
decidin but no matter what you use you
gonna want to cut it in like 2-inch
pieces so it cooks nice and quickly and
evenly and then besides some seafood
we're also gonna need some herbs and I
have a little bit of basil some Italian
parsley some oregano and a little bit of
rosemary which we just want a pinch up
since that really can overpower things
but a little bit is gorgeous in this but
anyway assuming our tomato mixture has
been simmering for about 10 minutes we
can go ahead and transfer in our seafood
and by the way if you happen to be using
some very small shrimp or maybe some
calamari that's only gonna take like a
minute to cook you may want to give your
fish a few minutes head start but since
I'm using some pretty big shrimp here
I'm just gonna go ahead and add it all
at once and then what we'll do at this
point is give that a nice big pinch of
salt as well as raise our heat to high
and then we're gonna cover this tightly
and let it cook for just like five
minutes or until our fish is cooked
through so not only is this a fast
recipe but it's
so very easy recipe since we're simply
cooking this until our fish flakes apart
and you can kind of tell when it's
getting close because that fish will
kind of spring back and not feel mushy
anymore and as soon as that happens we
can finish this off by doing two things
we can go ahead and stir in our freshly
chopped herbs as well as turn off the
heat and by the way we want to be a
little bit gentle when we stir that in
so as not to break up our fish too much
and then once all that's been stirred
together and our fish is cooked through
and we'll flake apart we are pretty much
done except of course given this a taste
for seasoning which is something you
always need to do and by the way I just
realized Poseidon is a Greek god so for
this let's go with you either Neptune of
testin what's on your spoon so I check
mine out and it was perfect as was the
doneness of my fish which means I can go
ahead and serve this up into a warm bowl
which is hopefully adjacent to some nice
crusty bread and in addition to making
sure we have plenty of that brothy sauce
for a few final touches we'll go ahead
and drizzle over a little more olive oil
as well as another pinch of chili flakes
and then last but not least the
obligatory sprig of fresh oregano and
that's it what I'm calling Tuscan fish
do is done and ready to enjoy with a
spoon and nice hunk of bread and of
course it doesn't matter if something's
fast and easy if it's not also
incredibly delicious which this most
certainly is okay well fairly intensely
flavored the broth is very light and I
think because we use those cherry
tomatoes it has a beautiful freshness to
it
and of course since we are cooking the
seafood in our broth you generally don't
have to worry about things getting dry
which can be a problem for a lot of
people when they try to cook seafood so
to summarize a beautiful fast easy and
extremely tasty method even though I
don't remember a ton from that trip
thirty years ago to Tuscany I do
remember being sort of surprised that
they used herbs I associated with
cooking meats like sage and rosemary
with various seafood whether it was
grilled or roasted or in a stew they
were using some things I never even
considered so I found it very
enlightening and liberating but most
importantly of all delicious so while
I'm not exactly sure how authentic this
is I am pretty sure it's something
you're gonna enjoy a lot which is why I
really do hope you give this a try soon
so head over to food which is calm for
all the ingredient amounts of more info
as usual and as always enjoy
you