Bouillabaisse
The fish soup of Marseille’s fishermen: rockfish, saffron, fennel and orange peel. It’s served in two stages: first the broth with bread and rouille, then the fish.
Ingredients
- 2 kg mixed rockfish (monkfish, scorpion fish, conger eel, red mullet), cleaned, with the bones set aside
- 1 onion, 1 leek and 1 fennel bulb
- 4 tomatoes
- 4 garlic cloves
- A few saffron threads
- 1 strip of orange peel
- Olive oil, salt and pepper
- Toasted bread and rouille (garlic mayonnaise with saffron and chilli)
How to make it at home
- Soften the chopped onion, leek, fennel and garlic in oil. Add the tomato.
- Add the bones and heads, the orange peel and the saffron, cover with boiling water and cook for 30 minutes over a high heat.
- Pass the broth through a food mill and strain it.
- Bring it back to the boil and cook the fish in pieces in it, from firmest to most tender, for about 10 minutes.
- Serve the broth first with the bread spread with rouille, then the fish.
The trick: The rolling boil is what binds the oil with the broth: hence its name (bouillir, “to boil”; abaisser, “to lower”).