Fish soup

In my Italian family (on my mother's side) we celebrate Christmas Eve with the Feast of the Seven Fishes - our first course is fish soup. My grandmother's peasant recipe for fish soup is basically broth, tomatoes, celery, onions and cod. It's yummy but my cousin Jim came up with an even better recipe......sorry Nani, wherever you are but Jim's is better........  I'm not sure if he made it up from combining ingredients out of several recipes or if this was a recipe he found.  This one calls for cod and it's great but tonight in addition to cod I added a bag of Trader Joe's blended shellfish (shrimp, bay scallops, calamari rings). It was outstanding but in the future I'll just buy the shellfish I want to add from the fish market - I'm thinking the shrimp, scallops, clams and crab in addition to cod. We have more than enough leftover for tomorrow's game watching.........yum.   I hope you try it.........

Fisherman's Soup

6 slices of bacon, chopped

2 tbs butter

1 large onion, chopped

3 ribs of celery, chopped

2 cloves minced garlic

3 tsp Old Bay seasoning

3 tbs fresh chopped cilantro

1 tsp fresh thyme leaves (I didn't have any tonight so I used a bit less dried)

1 bay leaf

1 pound tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped (I didn't have any tonight so used a can of chopped tomatoes)

2/3 cup white wine

2-3 cups fish stock (I used a whole box which was a bit more than 3 cups)

11 oz potatoes, diced

1 1/2 - 2 pounds skinless white fish fillets cut into chunks (I used 1/2 pound cod and a one pound bag of mixed shellfish from Trader Joe's)

Fry the bacon until crisp. Remove from pan, drain off most of the fat, leave just a little.

Add butter to the pan and cook onion and celery until soft, add garlic and herbs and cook for one minute. Add tomatoes, stock and wine and bring to a boil.

Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 15 minutes. Add potatoes, cover again and simmer for 10-12 minutes or until the potatoes are almost tender.

Add chunks of fish and other seafood and bacon pieces. Simmer gently uncovered for 5 minutes or until fish and seafood are cooked.

Garnish with additional fresh chopped cilantro and a squeeze of fresh lime juice.  You don't have to do this but it really makes the soup.

Feast of the Seven Fishes

Theresa asked about Feast of the Seven Fishes........here's a link to a brief explanation of what it is. The tradition comes from the Italian side of my family (mother's side). The religious aspect is totally lost on my family these days - my immediate family, as in aunts/uncles, etc. have converted from the Catholic Church to whatever/nothing or are non-practicing Catholics. But the tradition carries on. These days it's a challenge to come up with 7 fish/seafood dishes for those of us in Oregon, only 5 these days, so 7 dishes is way too much food. Many times small appetizers help fill the bill.

Back east this was a huge evening for my big extended family with plates of fried shrimp in the frito misto batter (we forgo that now for a lighter panko crumb coating), fried oysters, scallops, incredible fish soup, calamari in a tomato sauce, teaila (fish casserole), cocktail shrimp and whatever else we could come up with. I will never forget my father going down to the wharves in DC for the oysters and then working down in the basement at the laundry tub shucking them - he and one of my aunts would also eat a few raw (gross). Dad always saved some for oyster stew a day or two later.

These days the menu consists of the fried shrimp, we don't like west coast oysters so none of those, calamari, shrimp cheese ball appetizer, crab dip, smoked salmon and sometimes fish soup, scallops, crab cakes. We always have roasted peppers - my grandmother and mother were roasting peppers when I was very small, decades before you ever heard of it being done mainstream. Me - I'd be happy with a big bowl of cioppino and a loaf of crusty bread. I am so out of it this year I haven't even given any thought to the menu - with Christmas two weeks away it's time for a family discussion on the menu and who will make what.

On Christmas Day dinner - we never used to have much of one - it was always leftovers from the night before with a pasta dish on the side. Oh, and Christmas cookies with coffee for breakfast while waiting for everyone to wake up for present opening. My grandparents lived next door so between the houses and family visiting there were a lot of people to wait on in the morning.

Oh, and the Christmas cookies - dozens of kinds - trays and trays of all different kinds of cookies, traditional family recipes. That's another thing we don't need tons of out here with only 5 of us and two of them diabetics- I'd be finding Christmas cookies still in the freezer 10 months later! If I make one cookie this year it will be an accomplishment.