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Kitchen store owner shares memories

By Kim Davaz

If there’s anyone who would know her way around a kitchen, it’s the owner of a kitchen store. Or many kitchen stores. Renée Behnke and her husband Carl bought the original Sur La Table kitchen store in Seattle’s Pike Place Market in 1995, and now have more than 75 Sur La Tables.

Behnke grew up in a family who valued good food, and she begins her cookbook “Memorable Recipes to Share With Family and Friends” with some of her own food memories. The introduction continues with a guide to planning parties as well as some wine notes by Dan McCarthy, co-owner of Seattle’s McCarthy & Schiering Wine Merchants.

The recipes come from all over the world, including a Moroccan tagine, a spicy Portuguese shellfish and sausage cataplana, an Asian spinach soup with shrimp, Southwestern chilies relleños, and a very American peanut butter pie, preferably drizzled with hot fudge sauce.

There is, of course, a good number of recipes that feature foods of the Northwest: salmon, shellfish, lamb, hazelnuts, fruit and wine.

Family favorites and old standards include Behnke’s grandmother’s cabbage rolls, roasted chicken, a slow-cooked brisket and fried chicken.

Recipes are arranged by food type, from appetizers to desserts. The last chapter has seven complete menus, each with a cooking game plan, decorating ideas and wine notes.

“Memorable Recipes” ends with some cooking techniques and a list of Behnke’s 10 favorite tools. When was the last time you heard someone say fish tweezers were a favorite kitchen tool? There’s no list of sources, but you know where she gets all of her kitchen stuff.

Seattle Cioppino is a delicious way to serve a variety of Northwest seafood. Let your fishmonger help choose what to include, depending on what’s fresh and at its best.

The base may be made up to three days in advance. When you’re ready to make dinner, heat the base gently over medium-low heat, adding the seafood before before serving.

After adding about 10 pounds of cold ingredients, it’s going to take a while for the pot to get back up to a simmer. Start checking the seafood after 7 or 8 minutes after the simmering starts. Depending on the size of the clams, they might not take so long to cook and open. I’d add the scallops and shrimp at the very end, giving them just a few minutes to cook. When the shrimp are pink and curled, they’re done.

The only accompaniments suggested are garlic bread, a green salad and bowls for discarded shells.

Seattle Cioppino

Serves 8.

• 10 sprigs fresh flat-leaf parsley
• 5 sprigs fresh basil
• 6 sprigs fresh oregano or thyme
• 1 dried bay leaf
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 medium onions, finely diced
• 4 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
• 1 green bell pepper, cored, seeded and diced
• 1 red bell pepper, cored, seeded and diced
• 3/4 pound small button mushrooms, trimmed and quartered
• 1/4 cup diced celery
• 1 can (28 ounces) diced tomatoes
• 2 cups dry white wine
• 1 cup fish stock, chicken stock or top-quality chicken broth
• 1 can (6 ounces) tomato paste
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 pounds halibut or rockfish, skin and bones removed, cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1 1/4 pounds large shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 1/2 pound sea scallops
• 1 1/2 pounds live Manila or other hard-shell clams, rinsed
• 2 (2 1/2 pounds) cooked Dungeness crabs, cleaned and cracked

Tie together the parsley, basil, oregano and bay leaf in a piece of cheesecloth, secured with kitchen string.

Heat the olive oil in a large soup pot over medium heat. Add the onions and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, for 8 to 10 minutes, until tender and aromatic but not browned. Add the bell peppers, mushrooms and celery and cook for about 5 minutes, until softened. Stir in the herb bundle, tomatoes, wine fish stock, tomato paste and salt. Bring to a low boil over medium-high heat. Decrease the heat to medium low, cover and simmer for 1 hour. (The mixture should not boil actively; decrease the heat as needed.)

Discard the herb bundle. Add the seafood in this order: fish cubes, shrimp, scallops, clams and finally crab pieces. Cover the pot, increase the heat to medium and simmer for about 15 minutes, or until the clams have opened and the fish, shrimp and scallops are cooked through. Don’t stir during cooking to keep from breaking up the fish pieces.

Discard any clams that have not opened. Distribute the different seafood among large, shallow bowls and ladle the flavorful broth over.

Kim Davaz writes a biweekly cookbook review column for The Register-Guard.

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