Italian Seafood Cioppino - an easily made seafood soup

Although it's an Italian-inspired dish, Seafood Cioppino actually originated in San Francisco.

Seafood Cioppino is a tomato-based seafood stew seasoned with herbs and white wine. Traditionally, Cioppino isn't overly thick; it's more about extracting and blending the fresh flavors of the seafood into the broth.

Although it has Italian flavors, Cioppino actually originated in San Francisco, not Italy. In the 1800s, many Italian immigrants from the Genoa region settled in San Francisco, particularly in the North Beach area, where they worked as fishermen. It was customary for fishermen who had not caught any seafood that day to collect a small amount of seafood from their fellow fishermen upon returning to shore. This practice of "chipping in" seafood led to the creation of a mixed seafood stew, which naturally became known as Cioppino, reflecting the local practice of sharing.

However, some believe that the Genoese already had a dish called "Cioppin," which was a fish stew. It is thought that when they arrived in San Francisco and encountered a wide variety of seafood, the local Italian fishermen began using the leftover seafood to make a tomato-based stew, which evolved into what we now know as Seafood Cioppino.

Regardless, Cioppino remains a flavorful and simple-to-make dish. For this recipe, I used only blue mussels and tiger prawns, but feel free to use any type of seafood you prefer.

Ingredients (serve 2)

---

Tiger Prawns	5 each
Blue Mussel	1KG
Onion	1 bulb
Cherry Tomato	8-10 pcs
Garlic	4 cloves
Tomato Paste	2 tbsp
White Wine	150 ml
Water	500ml
Thyme	4 sprigs
Lemon	½ each
Salt	1 tsp
Sugar	4 tsp
Chilli Powder	1 tsp
Ground Black Pepper	1 pinch

Steps

---

1. Chop the onion and garlic finely, and cut the cherry tomatoes into quarters.

2. Over high heat, add a small amount of oil and sear the shrimp on both sides until golden brown (no need to cook them through). Once done, remove and set aside.

3. In the same pot, add a bit more oil and sauté the chopped onions, garlic, and cherry tomatoes until fragrant.

4. Add tomato paste, white wine, and thyme, and continue to cook for 2 minutes until the alcohol has evaporated.

5. Add water, bring to a boil, then squeeze in an appropriate amount of lemon juice. Season with salt, sugar, and black pepper to taste.

6. Add the shrimp and mussels, and cook until all the mussels have opened. Serve the dish once the mussels are fully cooked.

7. Pairing it with some bread is perfect—can't go wrong!