Sign up for our newsletters Subscribe
If that's true, it's funny you don't often see a connection made between Manhattan clam chowder and cioppino, another Italian-American invention, born on the opposite coast by San Francisco fishermen making use of the day's catch in a tomato- and wine-based stew that often incorporated the anisey notes of chopped fennel. Cioppino has far more in common with bouillabaise than it does with MCC, but it's close enough, so when I was in the store to pick up my potatoes and carrots, I hung a left turn, grabbing a few fennel bulbs instead, and then a can of chickpeas just for the hell of it. The result was a bicoastal merger that definitely improved the eastern contribution, while simplifying the western one. But you can wing it any way you like.
First I diced up a good cup's worth of fatty bacon and crisped it in the bottom of a Dutch oven. I added a diced onion, a diced green pepper, three chopped celery stalks, two chopped fennel bulbs, and four minced cloves of garlic. I sauteed them in the fat until they were translucent, then added bay leaves, oregano, and thyme, then three cups of chicken broth and three bottles of Bumble Bee brand clam juice.* I simmered it for a few hours, then added two large packages of whole frozen clams I found at Joong Boo and the chickpeas, heating slowly until just cooked through. Serve it with Louisiana Hot sauce and buttered sourdough toast and you're golden.
*One of the few reasons you should ever need to enter a Jewel.
Comments
Showing 1-1 of 1