Chef Tom Colicchio is the chef & owner of Crafted Hospitality. He is the Head Judge of Bravo’s “Top Chef,” a cookbook author, a food advocate, and more. In this episode, Tom shares a recipe that he recently made for his own family (one he makes every Christmas Eve for the Feast of the Seven Fishes), a Tuscan Fish Stew called Cacciucco. Tune in to learn why he changed up his cooking method for the first time in 30 years this holiday season. If you missed Tom’s full episode, check out Episode 025.
you’re listening to be on the plate with Andrew Kaplan this sounds so weird you’re listening to Bey on the plate with Cappy hey everyone this is Cappy and you’re listening to just the plate a production of beyond the plate just the plate is a short segment where chefs describe a recipe sharing Insider tips and tricks on what makes this their favorite dish last week we heard from Chef Tom kikio Tom is the chef and owner of crafted Hospitality he has restaurants in New York Las Vegas Los Angeles uh one of my favorite sandwich spots spread across New York City called witchcraft which you heard me express my love for last episode Tom is the head judge on Top Chef he’s a cookbook author he’s a food activist Tom co-founded the food policy Action Group this is a group that holds legislators accountable for their voting records around food and they do this by issuing an ual scorecard it’s a super interesting group and I highly encourage you to check them out we’ll share more about their website and where to get in touch with them at the end of this episode but if you did miss last week’s episode where Tom goes into great detail about food policy action and the other work he does please be sure to check that out in this episode for just the plate Tom’s going to share a recipe that he just made for his family it’s a tusin fish stew called kachuko not to be confused with chapeno chapeno is actually an Italian Aman fish fish stew type dish that originated in San Francisco believe it or not but Tom he’s been making this dish for about 30 years for his family and he made it this year in a pressure cooker for the first time and it took a fraction of the time it was super interesting because I don’t have any experience with a pressure cooker quite frankly so I asked him a bunch of questions about it stov top or electric and how long on things and then he started talking about some other things he does in the pressure cooker he happens to be a big fan of them I’ll stop talking but this is just a plate this is Tom kikio uh chef and restaurer and food Advocate father of the three and fishing fanatic and my recipe that I want to share with you today is a fish stew it’s a Tuscan fish stew called kachuko and this is a dish that I cook every Christmas Eve as part of the Feast of Seven Fishes so it’s it’s uh on the top of my mind in fact uh as soon as I’m done with it I’ll probably end up eating some of the leftovers for lunch but um it starts by using a a making a base of Sofrito an Italian sofo in this case it’s a white Sofrito so it’s celery leaks fennel and onion if you like you can actually put everything through a processor a food procer with the exception of the onion so just pulse everything until it’s very very finely grated and then add in a fine dice of onion into the food processor and you can pulse that for a couple pulses as well it should be very very finely chopped as fine as possible now typically when you when you make the Sofrito you cook it for about 2 hours on the stove in a good amount of olive oil enough olive oil to pretty much cover uh the vegetables this year I tried something a little different I actually cooked it in a pressure cooker and so I cut the 2hour cook time down to about 20 minutes all the vegetables in the pressure cooker a good amount of olive oil medium pressure for 20 minutes until it’s completely cooked after that feel free to open the pressure cooker and just turn on the simmer switch if you have a simmer switch on your pressure cooker to actually just let some of the the water cook out of it and after you have it reducing for about 10 minutes or so uh then you make the take the next step um the next step for the kachuko would be to add some squid so about a a a cup or so of of uh of squid the tentacles um and and and the uh the tubes uh sliced straight across let that cook for good in the pressure cooker again under medium pressure let that cook for about 10 minutes in the pressure cooker release the the pressure open off the top now you have to add clams you can add about two dozen clams and back to the pressure cooker pressurize it and cook for another 3 minutes 4 minutes um at that point the clam should be open open the lid add tomatoes some some uh crushed like a whole plum tomatoes that you just Crush by hand I add two cans to this lid back on pressure cooker for about another three or four minutes at that point your base is done say you have your base it’s a a a light tomato really earthy flavor um you’re going to get some aromatics from the uh from the vegetables you can add additional fennel seed to it if you like and then what I do is is put it into a pot take it out of the pressure cooker it goes into a a large saire and then to finish the dish you can start adding your Seafood now what I do is add Lobster shrimp scallops and the lobster I precook each Lobster cook only about two or three minutes take the meat out of the shell cut it into chunk you know one inch chunks so I start by adding the scalps the sea scalps let that gently cook add the shrimp gently cook and then fin it with the lobster when I’m done a fresh grating of lemon zest a good amount of lemon zest that use a grater or a um microp planer and top with a good amount of parsley and that’s pretty much it in terms of pressure cooker I’m just curious do you use a stove top one or electric or have you used one often electric I’ve never used one but people ask me I’m curious yeah they’re actually great I mean you can make I make chicken soup in 20 minutes wow and it’s clear it’s it’s yeah it’s uh 18 minutes and the pressure with the whole whole chicken water maybe bay leaf and some thyme Rosemary pressure cooker 20 minutes open up the lid add carrot celery onion leak back in for about 3 four minutes done that’s incredible so electric you said yeah yeah now if you don’t have a pressure cooker for the kachuko again you’d have to cook the Sofrito for about two hours then add the squid the squid you have to cook for about 45 minutes and then add the clams until they’re open and then the tomatoes let that cook for about another 20 25 minutes before adding all the other Seafood got it so it’s usually like a long form process but this is the first year you did pressure cooker and you’re happy with first year yeah pretty happy I think I didn’t reduce it after I I made the base uh you know the original Sofrito and I think that’s what I would have done a little differently I would have reduced it down because it it was a little thin but still the flavor was really great that’s awesome yeah I mean obviously add salt and pepper if you wanted a little spicier you can add some calabrian chilies to it but that’s pretty much it alter any Seafood you want if you want to add octopus to it obviously you should cook the o you know use a recipe to cook the O octopus first and then just finish it in the uh you know cut it into pieces and finish it in there you can add Bas scallops pretty much if you want to add pieces of fish you could do that as well Cod would work really well mfish would work really well you know some kind of fish that’s really meaty but that’s that’s really it great fish stew I’ve been making this recipe for about 30 years now at home it’s a it’s a real crowd favorite but it’s it’s not it’s not like a chapeno it’s not a a heavy tomato based sauce more flavor from the the the vegetabl itself in fact it should actually be almost brownish in color not not red and it just has a deep seafood and kind of earthy smell and flavor to it it’s it’s a little different than a sort of bright tomato based uh fish stew that sounds awesome well thank you so much for your time I appreciate it hope you have a good week and maybe get a couple minutes off thanks Tom take care have a good day [Music] bye find more on Tom kikio at crafted hospitality.com and food policy action.org this episode was produced by Ian Cohen Joel Yeon and myself you can find me and keep up to date 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