Bouillabaisse

Ingredients

Fish

• 2.5 kgmixed whole Mediterranean rockfish, gutted and scaled, of at least four kinds from scorpion fish, tub gurnard, John Dory, conger eel, weever, monkfish and red gurnard
• 500 gfish heads and bones

Broth

• 150 mlolive oil
• 2onions, sliced
• 1leek, sliced
• 1fennel bulb, sliced
• 4tomatoes, chopped
• 6 clovesgarlic, crushed
• 1strip dried orange peel
• 2 sprigsthyme
• 1bay leaf
• a large pinch of saffron threads
• 2 litreswater
• salt and pepper

Rouille

• 2egg yolks
• 4 clovesgarlic
• 1small cooked potato, taken from the pot
• a pinch of saffron
• ½ tspcayenne pepper
• 250 mlolive oil
• salt

To serve

• 1baguette, sliced and toasted
• 6potatoes, peeled and thickly sliced

Directions

1. Sweat the onion, leek and fennel in the olive oil over a medium heat for 10 minutes without letting them take any colour.
2. Add the garlic, tomatoes, orange peel, thyme and bay leaf and cook for a further 5 minutes.
3. Add the heads, bones and the smallest of the rockfish, pour in the 2 litres of water and bring it to a hard, rolling boil. The name comes from bouillir and abaisser, to boil and to reduce, and that violent boil is what drives the olive oil into an emulsion with the broth. It is the exact opposite of the gentle simmer you would give any other fish stock.
4. Boil hard for 20 minutes, crushing the fish into the liquid with a masher as it goes.
5. Pass everything through a food mill and then through a fine sieve, pressing hard on the solids before discarding them.
6. Return the broth to the pan, add the saffron and the sliced potatoes, season, and simmer for 15 minutes until the potatoes are nearly tender.
7. For the rouille, pound the garlic with the saffron, cayenne and a good pinch of salt, work in one of the cooked potatoes, then the egg yolks, and finally dribble in the olive oil very slowly while whisking, exactly as for a mayonnaise. The potato is insurance: it holds the emulsion together when a plain yolk rouille would split.
8. Lower the firmest fish into the broth first, the conger and the monkfish, and give them 4 minutes before adding the more delicate John Dory, gurnard and scorpion fish.
9. Cook for 8 to 10 minutes in total, until the flesh parts from the bone. Putting every species in at the same moment guarantees that some arrive raw and others fall apart.
10. Lift the fish and potatoes out onto a warmed platter and keep them covered.
11. Serve in two courses, which is what the 1980 charter requires. The broth comes first, in bowls, with toasted bread spread with rouille floated on top.
12. The fish and potatoes follow, filleted at the table in front of the guests, with a ladle of the broth spooned over each plate.

Technique

• The charte de la bouillabaisse marseillaise, signed by Marseille restaurateurs in 1980, sets out which species qualify and requires that the fish be presented whole and filleted at the table. It exists because the dish was being sold as anything with fish in it.
• No mussels, no prawns, no lobster. Shellfish belong to other Provençal stews and their sweetness works against this one.
• One species will not do it, however good the fish. The variety of bones and gelatine is what makes the broth.
• This began as the fishermen’s dish made from the rockfish nobody would buy, which is worth remembering now that it is the most expensive thing on the menu.

Substitutions

• Away from the Mediterranean, use whatever bony, gelatinous rockfish you can get: gurnard, red mullet, monkfish, conger, small wrasse.
• A pinch of turmeric will give colour if saffron is out of reach, though it gives nothing else.

Variations

• Bourride, the white cousin, thickened with aïoli instead of rouille.
• The Toulon version, which puts the potatoes in the pot from the start.
• Bouillabaisse borgne, made with no fish at all and a poached egg instead, which is what poorer households ate.

History

Marseille fishermen cooked the rockfish they could not sell; a 1980 charter fixed which species and what service a real bouillabaisse requires.

Frequently asked questions

What is Bouillabaisse?

Bouillabaisse is a soup & stew from France: marseille saffron fish stew served with rouille toasts. Marseille fishermen cooked the rockfish they could not sell; a 1980 charter fixed which species and what service a real bouillabaisse requires.

How long does Bouillabaisse take to make?

Bouillabaisse takes 45 min of preparation and 1 hr of cooking. The recipe makes 6 servings. It is rated hard to make.

What can I substitute in Bouillabaisse?

Yes, within limits. Away from the Mediterranean, use whatever bony, gelatinous rockfish you can get: gurnard, red mullet, monkfish, conger, small wrasse. A pinch of turmeric will give colour if saffron is out of reach, though it gives nothing else.