Cooking: Shellfish Stew

Before my trip to New Orleans last week, I had bought a fennel bulb and a leek, intending to make a bouillabaisse and just didn't get to it.  Luckily, these root vegetables remained fresh enough in the vegetable drawer, which made for a delicious midweek dinner.

My mise en place:  a can of fire-roasted diced tomatoes, olive oil, 2 bottles of clam juice, Chardonnay.  I started by dicing half of a large yellow onion and mincing 2 large cloves of garlic.

I then chopped and diced the fennel and sliced half the leek into thin segments.  I normally discard the tops and fronds of the fennel, but decided this time to finely chop the fronds and am glad I did as they added lovely color to the broth and a bit more of that licorice flavor to the stew.

I had already tossed my onion and garlic into the soup pot along with a glug of olive oil.  Then I tossed in the sliced leek and let the aromatics sweat with a sprinkle of salt on medium high heat.

After about 5 minutes of sautéing the aromatics, I then added my chopped fennel bulb as well as its fronds.

While the fennel was sautéing further with the onions, garlic and leek, I got to chopping and dicing 4 Yukon gold potatoes from my garden. 

When I added the diced potatoes into the soup pot, I also added a couple knobs of butter.

I also added a couple bay leaves and then shook a couple of teaspoons of saffron into my palm to rub and crush and add to the pot.

Next I added what was left in my wineglass after sipping.

Then in went the canned tomatoes and the bottles of clam juice.

I let the soup simmer for a good 45 minutes to meld the flavors and cook the potatoes, occasionally adding water and tasting to add more sprinkles of salt.  This is the broth after the simmer.  I then took out my shellfish from the freezer.

I had bought a bag of frozen shellfish:  cooked mussel in the shell, deveined and peeled shrimp, calamari rings, and scallops.  I had already cheated by not making my own fish stock, so this is another shortcut by not buying the seafood fresh from the fishmonger.  I added half the package or 3 soup bowls full of seafood.

I hate when shellfish gets overcooked, and so I added it before serving rather than letting it get rubbery.  It only needed to cook for a couple minutes in the bubbling broth.

A toasted piece of baguette rubbed with a bit of garlic clove and a slather of butter, a glass of ice cold white wine and a bowl of shellfish stew made for a lovely and ooh la la meal.