CIOPPINO CHALLENGE

Santa Monica’s Ocean Ave Seafood won the first cioppino contest staged in this seafaring town, indicating that what started as a San Francisco specialty may be more at home in the Southland.

Another Southern California restaurant, John Dominis of Newport Beach, came in third, while second place went to the Spyglass Inn of Shell Beach.

Cioppino is a robust fisherman’s stew based on the day’s catch rather than any set formula. Tomatoes, olive oil, herbs and wine are standard ingredients, and shellfish usually predominate. Introduced decades ago by Italians and Portuguese working off the northern coast, cioppino has become linked to Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco.

Because no restaurant from that tourist attraction took part in the contest (two canceled), judges could not determine whether San Francisco had lost its culinary grip.

The competition took place on neutral terrain, about midway between San Francisco and Los Angeles. The site was the Olde Port Inn on the pier at Port San Luis. However, restaurant manager Leonard Cohen was not out to start a North-South rivalry. “I wanted everybody to win,” Cohen said.

Entries were judged for aroma, flavor, creativity, presentation and overall quality. Ocean Ave Seafood scored high in still another area, thoughtfulness. Cioppino is messy to eat, and sticky-fingered judges were delighted by the entry’s accompaniments: finger bowls and wet towels topped with lemon slices.

Kelly Mullarney, Ocean Ave chef, made the dish spicy with black pepper and crushed hot red peppers. But the mellow broth was also amply seasoned with fresh herbs, porcini mushrooms, tomatoes and aromatic vegetables such as fennel root. Large white individual serving bowls were piled high with Dungeness crab, clams, large spot prawns and swordfish substituting for albacore, which the restaurant had not been able to obtain.

For dunking, Mullarney provided sourdough bread--not the celebrated San Francisco variety but a hometown product from the Pioneer Boulangerie in Santa Monica. And for drinking, he presented a bottle of Sanford Pinot Noir 1986, the same wine that flavored the sauce. “I thought it married well with the tomatoes,” Mullarney said.

The wine was a savvy choice because the contest was accompanied by a tasting of Central Coast Pinot Noirs. Cohen, a wine enthusiast, considers Pinot Noir the ideal accompaniment to cioppino and had dubbed the event a “Cio-Pinot” cookoff.

What is poured into the pot can vary, however. “White wine gives leaner, crisper flavor,” said Cohen, who sometimes adds both white and red wines and uses all Pinot Noir only for special occasions.

Matt Murphy, chef of the second place Spyglass Inn, seasoned his cioppino with dry vermouth while Robert Reash Jr. of John Dominis used a dry white wine. Chardonnay went into a full-bodied Sicilian-style cioppino prepared by Stephanie Ciambra-Ball of Genovese’s Italian Restaurant in Grover City. Ed Diaz of the Yankee Clipper restaurant in Ventura added Chenin Blanc for sweetness. And Joe Zoellin of Flaherty’s in Carmel finished off his stew with a splash of Port, apparent only in the first whiff when the lid of the pot was lifted.

From its start as a simple seaman’s supper, cioppino has advanced to a luxury dish with, occasionally, some surprising ingredients. The Spyglass Inn prize winner, presented in an elaborately carved, footed silver tureen, was packed with enormous prawns, lobster, scallops with the roe attached, cockles, clams and albacore. The John Dominis entry, served in gleaming copper-and-brass casseroles, also contained a wide range of costly seafood and combined such contemporary California seasonings as cilantro and jalapeno chile with saffron, which is a classic component of French bouillabaisse.

Ernest A. Wally of Chef Wally’s Bistro in San Diego produced what may be the state’s only cioppino containing shark fins. Wally also added barquetta bass cheeks, lobster, rock crab claws, halibut, swordfish, sculpin and skate wings, all fresh from the San Diego area. Although the entry did not place in the top three, it boasted one of the most well-balanced broths.

Vienna-born Wally, who has worked in Australia and Hong Kong, startled the judges by adding a side dish of highly seasoned, Indian-style tomato chutney. The chutney was meant to go with thin slices of firm bread, not the cioppino.

Ciambra-Ball topped Genovese’s cioppino with basil sprigs and accompanied it with sourdough bread lushly seasoned with Sicilian olive oil, butter, garlic, Parmesan cheese and Italian parsley. As if that weren’t enough, she added little pots of intensely flavored pesto. Although her cioppino came in fourth, Ciambra-Ball won first place for creativity.

Another idea for dunking was warm olive oil seasoned with fresh basil. This accompanied the Dominis cioppino. Most of the chefs served sourdough or crusty French breads, but Eugen Kunstmann of Jagermeister in Arroyo Grande offered slices of Bavarian rye bread. Kunstmann, who is from Bad Kissingen, a health resort in Germany, entered a mild cioppino with distinctively German ingredients. Among these were celery root and leaves from his home garden in Santa Maria, and parsnips. In addition to Port wine, Kunstmann added Jagermeister liqueur, an herbal-flavored concoction produced south of the Rhine.

The panel of judges took four hours to assess the merits of the eight cioppinos. The $50 a ticket tasting that followed was a benefit for the San Luis Obispo County Unit of the American Cancer Society. Wineries that participated were Wild Horse, Meridian, Creston Manor, Talley, Edna Valley, Corbett Canyon, Byron, Zaca Mesa, Firestone, Sanford and Congress Springs.

Here are recipes for the winning cioppino and for the top rated accompaniments, Ciambra-Ball’s pesto and Wally’s tomato chutney.

OCEAN AVE

SEAFOOD’S

FIRST-PLACE

CIOPPINO

4 (2- to 3-pound) whole Dungeness crabs, live if available

2 pounds Manila clams

3 pounds large spot prawns with heads

3 pounds fresh albacore or swordfish

1 cup virgin olive oil

16 large cloves garlic, minced

2 large yellow onions, thinly sliced

1 large leek, white part only, split lengthwise, then sliced crosswise

1 large green pepper, thinly sliced

1 large sweet red pepper, thinly sliced

36 plum tomatoes, seeded and chopped

1/2 (6-ounce) can tomato paste

1 bunch parsley, chopped

1 bunch fresh basil, shredded

2 tablespoons fresh oregano leaves, chopped

1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves

1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, chopped

1 tablespoon fresh marjoram leaves, chopped

4 dried bay leaves

1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper (coarse grind)

1 1/2 teaspoons dried hot red pepper flakes

1 ounce dried porcini mushrooms

2 quarts Ocean Ave Fish Stock

1 (750-milliliter) bottle Pinot Noir

Sea salt or rock salt, if needed

Chopped parsley and basil for garnish

Prepare crab. If using frozen crab, cut into sections and crack shells lightly. Clean clams. Wash shrimp but do not peel. Cut fish into 1-inch dice.

Heat olive oil in large pot. Add garlic cloves and cook until tender but not browned. Add onions, leek, green and red peppers and cook until tender. Add tomatoes and cook 3 minutes. Add tomato paste and cook, stirring, 3 minutes longer. Add basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary, marjoram, bay leaves, black pepper, red pepper flakes, porcini mushrooms and 1 quart fish stock.

Cover and simmer 10 to 15 minutes. Add remaining stock and Pinot Noir and simmer, uncovered, 10 to 15 minutes, until slightly thickened. Add crab, clams, prawns and fish. Cover and cook 10 to 12 minutes, until all seafood is done. (If substituting smaller shrimp, add during last 5 minutes of cooking.) Taste and add salt if needed. Turn into large tureen and garnish top with parsley and basil. Makes 8 servings.

Note: If using freshly caught live crabs and clams, salt is not necessary. If using frozen shellfish, add 1 1/2 teaspoons salt when sauteing garlic.

Ocean Ave Fish Stock

2 quarts cold water

3 pounds fresh halibut bones

1/2 small fennel root with some leaves, diced

1 stalk celery without leaves, sliced

1/2 small yellow onion, diced

1/2 small leek, white part only, split lengthwise, then sliced crosswise

1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon black peppercorns

Combine water, fish bones, fennel, celery, onion, leek, bay leaf and peppercorns in large pot. Do not add salt. Bring to simmer and simmer uncovered 45 minutes. Strain through cheesecloth. Makes about 2 quarts.

GENOVESE’S SICILIAN

PESTO

2 cups firmly packed basil leaves

1 cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

1/4 cup pine nuts

Freshly ground pepper

5 large cloves garlic

1 1/2 cups Sicilian extra Virgin olive oil, about

Place basil in food processor and process until very finely shredded. Add cheese and process again. Add pine nuts and process. Add garlic and process.

With machine running, add olive oil in slow steady stream until pesto reaches desired consistency. Do not add salt. Makes 2 cups.

CHEF WALLY’S

TOMATO CHUTNEY

1 1/2 teaspoons tamarind pulp

1/4 cup rice vinegar

2 tablespoons peanut oil

1 tablespoon sesame oil

6 cups diced roma tomatoes (1/4-inch dice)

1/3 cup minced garlic

1/2 cup dark malt vinegar

1/3 cup Ginger Juice

3 tablespoons brown sugar

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon honey

1 tablespoon coarsely ground dried California chiles

1 tablespoon sea salt

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cardamom

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

Soften tamarind pulp in rice vinegar. Heat oils in heavy skillet. Add tomatoes and then garlic. Cook and stir 1 minute. Do not brown garlic. Add tamarind-vinegar mixture, malt vinegar, Ginger Juice, brown sugar, soy sauce, honey, ground chiles, sea salt, cardamom and cumin.

Simmer over low heat to evaporate liquid and caramelize ingredients. Finished chutney will be dark in color. Taste to adjust seasonings. Makes 3 1/3 cups.

Note: If tomatoes contain great deal of juice, reduce brown sugar to 2 tablespoons.

Ginger Juice

Grate, mince or grind enough ginger root to measure about 1/2 cup. Place in square of fine cloth or double thickness of cheesecloth and twist tightly to extract juice. Repeat if more juice is needed.