Anne Burrell's Pacific Cod and Clam Cacciucco _ Worst Cooks in America _ Food Network

# How to Make Tuscan Fish Stew (Cacciucco): A Step-by-Step Guide

## Introduction

Tuscan Fish Stew, known as Cacciucco, is a hearty and flavorful dish that showcases the best of Mediterranean cuisine. This recipe, demonstrated by our chef, offers a detailed walkthrough of creating this delicious stew from scratch. Follow along as we prepare the fish stock, develop the tomato base, enhance flavors with saffron, cook the fish and shellfish, and bring everything together for a mouthwatering meal.

## Preparing the Fish Stock

The foundation of any good fish stew begins with a rich, flavorful fish stock. The chef starts by gathering various vegetables—onions, celery, garlic—and coarsely chopping them. He emphasizes that making fish stock is straightforward, requiring just vegetables, fish bones (in this case, cod), and aromatic herbs like thyme and bay leaves.

As he heats the pan for the tomato fish stew, he adds the prepped vegetables to sweat. Simultaneously, he simmers the fish bones in water, bringing it to a boil before reducing the heat to a gentle simmer. This process extracts the "fishy goodness" from the bones, yielding a robust stock that forms the base of the dish.

For added flavor depth, he includes shrimp shells in the stock. These provide an extra layer of umami, enhancing the overall taste without complicating the preparation.

## Making the Tomato Base

With the fish stock simmering away, the chef moves on to preparing the tomato base. He passes fresh tomatoes through a food mill, ensuring that all pulpy bits are scraped off for a smooth consistency. This step is crucial for achieving a vibrant and flavorful sauce.

The tomatoes are then added to the sweating vegetables along with a touch of crushed red pepper for some spice. A splash of wine is incorporated next, bringing acidity to balance the richness of the dish. Seasoning with salt at this stage helps build flavor early in the cooking process.

## Enhancing with Saffron

Saffron, a prized ingredient in Mediterranean cuisine, adds a unique aromatic quality and striking yellow-orange hue to the stew. The chef highlights the importance of using just enough saffron to avoid overpowering the dish, advising against overuse which can lead to an unpleasant plastic-like taste.

He emphasizes that saffron is worth every penny for its contribution to both flavor and presentation. This step elevates the stew, making it a true Tuscan delicacy.

## Cooking the Fish and Shellfish

The chef sears cod portions on all sides to develop a beautiful crust, ensuring they will finish cooking in the stew later. He then steams clams in the stew base, scrubbed clean beforehand to remove any sand or grit. The clams are added directly to the pot, where they steam until they open, contributing their briny flavor.

Next, he adds shrimp to the stew, which cook swiftly and retain their tender texture. Seared cod is gently placed on top of the shrimp, allowing it to finish cooking in the simmering liquid.

## Bringing It All Together

The chef incorporates cooked beans (braisées) into the stew for added heartiness. Escarole, a leafy green, is quickly blanched using his salad spinner—a handy tool repurposed for this step.

With all ingredients layered in the pot, he puts the lid on and lets everything meld together. Once complete, he plates the stew, drizzling it with finishing oil and garnishing with fennel fronds and crusty bread for a rustic presentation.

## Conclusion

This Tuscan Fish Stew is a celebration of fresh ingredients and traditional techniques, offering a robust and satisfying meal. By following these steps, you can recreate this dish at home, savoring the rich flavors and textures that make Cacciucco a beloved classic.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat i like to call my tuscan fish too or the name the official name for tuscan fish stew is cachuco so i've got my coarsely chopped vegetables for my fish stock i know fish stock is one of those things that might seem a little scary to people they're like stock stock could not be more cinchy it's just a bunch of veg some bones in this case we're using fish bones and oh you know what while i'm over here and i did all my veg prep let's go ahead and get my pan heating up for my tomato fish stew also so look at me i'm multitasking all over the place so my veg or sweating for my fish stock let's get back to fish stock my fish bones this is some cod bones i'm using cod in my dish today so i'm just going to go ahead and use these same bones can i just simmer these guys i btb rts bring to boil reduce to simmer and simmer for about 20 minutes then fish bones give up their fishy goodness and that's done could not be more cinchy my fish stock is working working away i've been sweating some again some onions and celery and some garlic i added some fish bones to that and a whole bunch of thyme and bay leaves and my fennel tops so we just stick all that there i'm adding my shrimp shells to this i mean really i've got them those are like the bones of the shrimp so we'll go ahead and toss those in there as well so my shrimp beautiful ready peeled deveined all right i sliced up my garlic life is so easy when i do all my prep work ahead and it's just so much fun you just whip through things then all right nice so as i said this is a tomato fish too so let's go ahead and rock out our tomatoes so i'm gonna go ahead and put my tomatoes through my favorite piece of kitchen equipment my food mill and then we're gonna get those into my fish stew all right so i passed my tomatoes through my food mill i'm scraping off all the pulpy stuff off the bottom i always make sure i do that because that's the big money item there so all right so my vegetables seem nice and sweaty over here this is great my fish stock just about done all right look at that i'm to add a little bit of crushed red pepper to this you know the tomato sort of saffrony thing i like a little spice to it too that's great beautiful so it's time for the party let's go ahead and add some wine to this also this will bring a lovely bright acidity to the whole shooting match yeah baby all right we'll give it a little salt there as well you know we always kind of make sure we season along the way we'll help bring up beautiful big big flavors later on nice that we're going to let that reduce by half and then we're going to go ahead and get our fish stock in there but let's go ahead and strain the fish stock so as i said fish stock is really cinchy it's really q e so it's all about like just sort of bring stuff to a boil and then simmer it for about 20 to 30 minutes and then it's done it's a piece of cake and if you make a lot of fish stock now and you don't use it all go ahead and toss it in the freezer for the next time you're doing this okay look at my fish bones ready for the garbage can but we used all those big flavors all right look at my beautiful fish chalk i'm probably not even gonna need to use all of this today so we're gonna go ahead get fish stock in there we go we'll save that in case i need a little bit more later now we're going to go ahead and add a super special as i said my super special flavor weapon to this all right so we have our standards we have our time and we have our bay yes we always add these in sort of brazy stewie long cooking things yes there we go now we have the super cool thing saffron saffron is used in a lot of mediterranean cooking and it's very expensive it's like these look at these little like stringy looking things they're actually the stigma of a crocus and people go in there and pluck them out of every flower could you imagine if you were a saffron picker so we're gonna add this in there it has a very unique flavor it's pretty strong and it has a beautiful yellowy orange color and sometimes if you over saffron things can kind of taste like plastic so we want to feel that big flavor but we don't need to go hog wild with this in the meantime i'm just going to go ahead and grab my cod so in my fish too i'm gonna do some cod i have big shrimp and i'm also gonna do some clams so let's go ahead i'm gonna i'm gonna get these prepped in just a minute but let's take a looksie at our cod okay so i have these cut in about four ounce portions we've got big shrimp we've got clams so you know we don't need the biggest uh cod piece either but you know this is like a nice meaty white fish you know if you find something if you're cod at your fishmonger it doesn't look super fresh that day use something else use bass use snapper you know it's all about lovely fish stew okay look at that so we have nice yellow things going on there i'm gonna add my tomatoes to this season this guy up i've got my beautiful stew base here it's all tomatoes and fennel and onions and celery and garlic all big chunky stuff and it's got lovely saffron in there my cod that i got out is doing good things i think it should take one more second before i turn it all right so my cod beautiful looks ready to turn over here yeah baby oh look at this now i am just searing my cod on the outside here i'm going to add this to finish cooking it later on in my fish stew but at the moment i'm just getting it lovely and beautifully seared on the outside so there we go so my cod is beautifully browned on the top and the bottom i'm going to take this out we're going to ditch the fat here and then i'm going to add in my scrubbed clam so as i said with my clams i scrub the outside so we don't have any sand and grit and i picked through them to see to make sure that there weren't any shells that were broken or you know that everyone was all clammed up all nice and shut tight that's always what we do with all kinds of shellfish okay so these guys go right into my pods there we go yeah so now i'm going to use some of my fish stew base and we're going to steam the clams right in there sort of like a one pot deal once we get to this stage it goes all right in the same pot yeah yeah baby some of those big veg so i'll save this the rest of this stew base to add into there if i need to i'm going to steam my clams until they open beautiful my clams look at my little clams that i scrubbed and all that are cooked and open in my stew here i'm adding my shrimp to that so to cook those and then i'm going to go ahead and add my cod right on top of those so we cook those as well oh baby is this good looking so remember my cod i just seared and it's not fully cooked there we go carefully lay that back in there and i'm going to go ahead and put some beans my beanie weenies look at cooked perfectly seasoned perfectly and all of those aromatic-y things i've taken out easy removal the bacon skin and all that good stuff going on here yeah baby this look at a whole lot of stuff is winding up in this one pot and then it goes all right on my plate from there all these flavors are having a chance to come together so a little bit of escarole i washed this and used one of my other favorite pieces of kitchen equipment it's my salad spinner i love this thing it's good for stuff other than salad clearly because there goes my escarole in there so we're going to put the lid back on this hay put a lid on it and then it's just going to come together beautifully all good stuff happening in there look at that my cod cooked through let's go ahead and plate this whole shooting match huh look at is that a fish stew in there right now look i just want to take a picture of that because there's just so many beautiful flavors and colors and excellent stuff happening there so i'm going to use this thing i use this in the restaurant all the time but i find these very helpful at home it's called the sizzle platter so you know you can stick it in the broiler or it's very good to just be like a parking space which is what i'm doing right now so i'm taking my clams out of there and let's find my little shrimp underneath here so we made a big pot of this stuff but i'm just going to go ahead and place oh look at my shrimp cooked perfectly and gently and look how gorgeous this whole shooting matches so let's go ahead get some of my little beanie weenies yeah and my escarole look at we've got beans escarole all this fish this is a big meal today beautiful all right so cod some beautiful shrimp and you can arrange this however you want but this is a lovely presentation it's rustic and it's hearty fantastic so one more little ladle of this beautiful broth here okay clean up the bowl yeah this is pretty sexy all right so one more drizzle with my big fat finishing oil my fennel fronds and my bread and i am in business so there we go look at that oh yeah baby youwhat i like to call my tuscan fish too or the name the official name for tuscan fish stew is cachuco so i've got my coarsely chopped vegetables for my fish stock i know fish stock is one of those things that might seem a little scary to people they're like stock stock could not be more cinchy it's just a bunch of veg some bones in this case we're using fish bones and oh you know what while i'm over here and i did all my veg prep let's go ahead and get my pan heating up for my tomato fish stew also so look at me i'm multitasking all over the place so my veg or sweating for my fish stock let's get back to fish stock my fish bones this is some cod bones i'm using cod in my dish today so i'm just going to go ahead and use these same bones can i just simmer these guys i btb rts bring to boil reduce to simmer and simmer for about 20 minutes then fish bones give up their fishy goodness and that's done could not be more cinchy my fish stock is working working away i've been sweating some again some onions and celery and some garlic i added some fish bones to that and a whole bunch of thyme and bay leaves and my fennel tops so we just stick all that there i'm adding my shrimp shells to this i mean really i've got them those are like the bones of the shrimp so we'll go ahead and toss those in there as well so my shrimp beautiful ready peeled deveined all right i sliced up my garlic life is so easy when i do all my prep work ahead and it's just so much fun you just whip through things then all right nice so as i said this is a tomato fish too so let's go ahead and rock out our tomatoes so i'm gonna go ahead and put my tomatoes through my favorite piece of kitchen equipment my food mill and then we're gonna get those into my fish stew all right so i passed my tomatoes through my food mill i'm scraping off all the pulpy stuff off the bottom i always make sure i do that because that's the big money item there so all right so my vegetables seem nice and sweaty over here this is great my fish stock just about done all right look at that i'm to add a little bit of crushed red pepper to this you know the tomato sort of saffrony thing i like a little spice to it too that's great beautiful so it's time for the party let's go ahead and add some wine to this also this will bring a lovely bright acidity to the whole shooting match yeah baby all right we'll give it a little salt there as well you know we always kind of make sure we season along the way we'll help bring up beautiful big big flavors later on nice that we're going to let that reduce by half and then we're going to go ahead and get our fish stock in there but let's go ahead and strain the fish stock so as i said fish stock is really cinchy it's really q e so it's all about like just sort of bring stuff to a boil and then simmer it for about 20 to 30 minutes and then it's done it's a piece of cake and if you make a lot of fish stock now and you don't use it all go ahead and toss it in the freezer for the next time you're doing this okay look at my fish bones ready for the garbage can but we used all those big flavors all right look at my beautiful fish chalk i'm probably not even gonna need to use all of this today so we're gonna go ahead get fish stock in there we go we'll save that in case i need a little bit more later now we're going to go ahead and add a super special as i said my super special flavor weapon to this all right so we have our standards we have our time and we have our bay yes we always add these in sort of brazy stewie long cooking things yes there we go now we have the super cool thing saffron saffron is used in a lot of mediterranean cooking and it's very expensive it's like these look at these little like stringy looking things they're actually the stigma of a crocus and people go in there and pluck them out of every flower could you imagine if you were a saffron picker so we're gonna add this in there it has a very unique flavor it's pretty strong and it has a beautiful yellowy orange color and sometimes if you over saffron things can kind of taste like plastic so we want to feel that big flavor but we don't need to go hog wild with this in the meantime i'm just going to go ahead and grab my cod so in my fish too i'm gonna do some cod i have big shrimp and i'm also gonna do some clams so let's go ahead i'm gonna i'm gonna get these prepped in just a minute but let's take a looksie at our cod okay so i have these cut in about four ounce portions we've got big shrimp we've got clams so you know we don't need the biggest uh cod piece either but you know this is like a nice meaty white fish you know if you find something if you're cod at your fishmonger it doesn't look super fresh that day use something else use bass use snapper you know it's all about lovely fish stew okay look at that so we have nice yellow things going on there i'm gonna add my tomatoes to this season this guy up i've got my beautiful stew base here it's all tomatoes and fennel and onions and celery and garlic all big chunky stuff and it's got lovely saffron in there my cod that i got out is doing good things i think it should take one more second before i turn it all right so my cod beautiful looks ready to turn over here yeah baby oh look at this now i am just searing my cod on the outside here i'm going to add this to finish cooking it later on in my fish stew but at the moment i'm just getting it lovely and beautifully seared on the outside so there we go so my cod is beautifully browned on the top and the bottom i'm going to take this out we're going to ditch the fat here and then i'm going to add in my scrubbed clam so as i said with my clams i scrub the outside so we don't have any sand and grit and i picked through them to see to make sure that there weren't any shells that were broken or you know that everyone was all clammed up all nice and shut tight that's always what we do with all kinds of shellfish okay so these guys go right into my pods there we go yeah so now i'm going to use some of my fish stew base and we're going to steam the clams right in there sort of like a one pot deal once we get to this stage it goes all right in the same pot yeah yeah baby some of those big veg so i'll save this the rest of this stew base to add into there if i need to i'm going to steam my clams until they open beautiful my clams look at my little clams that i scrubbed and all that are cooked and open in my stew here i'm adding my shrimp to that so to cook those and then i'm going to go ahead and add my cod right on top of those so we cook those as well oh baby is this good looking so remember my cod i just seared and it's not fully cooked there we go carefully lay that back in there and i'm going to go ahead and put some beans my beanie weenies look at cooked perfectly seasoned perfectly and all of those aromatic-y things i've taken out easy removal the bacon skin and all that good stuff going on here yeah baby this look at a whole lot of stuff is winding up in this one pot and then it goes all right on my plate from there all these flavors are having a chance to come together so a little bit of escarole i washed this and used one of my other favorite pieces of kitchen equipment it's my salad spinner i love this thing it's good for stuff other than salad clearly because there goes my escarole in there so we're going to put the lid back on this hay put a lid on it and then it's just going to come together beautifully all good stuff happening in there look at that my cod cooked through let's go ahead and plate this whole shooting match huh look at is that a fish stew in there right now look i just want to take a picture of that because there's just so many beautiful flavors and colors and excellent stuff happening there so i'm going to use this thing i use this in the restaurant all the time but i find these very helpful at home it's called the sizzle platter so you know you can stick it in the broiler or it's very good to just be like a parking space which is what i'm doing right now so i'm taking my clams out of there and let's find my little shrimp underneath here so we made a big pot of this stuff but i'm just going to go ahead and place oh look at my shrimp cooked perfectly and gently and look how gorgeous this whole shooting matches so let's go ahead get some of my little beanie weenies yeah and my escarole look at we've got beans escarole all this fish this is a big meal today beautiful all right so cod some beautiful shrimp and you can arrange this however you want but this is a lovely presentation it's rustic and it's hearty fantastic so one more little ladle of this beautiful broth here okay clean up the bowl yeah this is pretty sexy all right so one more drizzle with my big fat finishing oil my fennel fronds and my bread and i am in business so there we go look at that oh yeah baby you\n"