This blog’s last post about slow-cooker meals got a few kudos on Facebook. So I figured I’d keep going on the topic, particularly since receiving a recipe today that I’ve never seen touted for a slow-cooker.
Bouillabaise is the quintessential French seafood stew, not unlike American cioppino, the topic of Jan Roberts-Dominguez’s latest column. I prefer the former for its fennel, leek and saffron, but when you’ve got a variety of seafood in your bowl, it’s hard to go wrong, provided it isn’t overcooked.
Fresh seafood, of course, is ideal. But I typically say the freshest seafood most people are going to find at Rogue Valley grocers actually is in the freezer cases.
I blogged before about how frozen seafood has a poor reputation, undeserved in recent decades that have seen major advances in freezing technology. Today’s flash-frozen and vacuum-sealed seafood — usually on a boat mere hours after it’s been plucked from the ocean — is preferable to the vast majority of seafood that appears fresh in refrigerator cases but actually was previously frozen and then thawed for who knows how many days.
Frozen clams and mussels are precooked and therefore less flavorful but very easy to use — no scrubbing required. And I’ve been very impressed with wild Gulf shrimp I’ve recently purchased frozen at Food 4 Less in Medford. The difference in flavor between farmed shrimp (the vast majority of which are) is evident.
MCT photo
Slow-Cooker Bouillabaise
2 cups chopped, peeled and seeded fresh tomatoes or chopped canned tomatoes
3 medium carrots, peeled and chopped
2 ribs celery, chopped
1 large fennel bulb, chopped, green tops trimmed and feathery leaves chopped and reserved
1 medium leek, trimmed, well-washed and sliced
3 tablespoons tomato paste
1 teaspoon herbes de Provence
1⁄4 teaspoon hot smoked paprika or ground red (cayenne) pepper
1 pinch saffron threads, crumbled
Salt, to taste
1 cup dry white wine
1 cup bottled clam juice
1 pound boneless, skinless fish fillets, such as halibut, grouper or monkfish
8 ounces sea scallops
8 ounces medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
6 small hardshell clams, soaked and scrubbed (optional)
1 small loaf French bread, sliced and toasted
Combine tomatoes, carrots, celery, fennel and leek in a large slow cooker. Add the tomato paste, herbes de Provence, paprika, saffron and salt to taste. Add 4 cups water, the wine and clam juice. Cover and cook on high for 4 to 5 hours or until vegetables are tender.
Cut the fish into bite-sized chunks and stir into soup with the sea scallops, shrimp and clams (if using). Cover and cook for 30 minutes more. Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary.
Place a slice of bread into each soup dish. Add the bouillabaise and sprinkle with fennel fronds. Pass remaining bread at the table. Makes 6 servings.
— Recipe adapted by the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch from “The French Slow Cooker,” by Michele Scicolone (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012).
