Bouillabaisse recipe

Here is the recipe we have all been waiting for, the golden soup of Marseille, as prepared by one of its inhabitants. Another authentic Provencal recipe from Claudia’s Kitchen and Provenceguru.

LA BOUILLABAISSE serves 6

For the soup

1kg of little rock fish

1 large onion

1 branch of fennel, a star anis, salt pepper, chilli powder, 2 garlic bulbs, 2 bay leaves, a few slices of dried orange peel, two big pinches of saffron

1 Small glass of pastis

A small box of concentrated tomato puree

3 litres of water

8 potatoes

A few large fish such as a red mullet, white scorpion fish, several slices of monkish or eel, red scorpion fish, weaver fish, John Dorry

Pour la rouille

2 egg whites

Fish livers

2 cloves of garlic

1 pinch of saffron

1 pinch chilli powder

1 pinch of salt and pepper

Croutons

Preparing the fish soup

Clean out the larger fish

Keep the small and medium fish whole and use to make the soup. Reserve the larger fish.

Fry the chopped onion and fennel branches in olive oil, add the orange peel and crushed garlic, and the bay leaves. Add the fish and fry, stirring frequently to make sure they do not stick. Tip in the pastis and let evaporate

Add the tomato puree and the star anis and cover with water.

Add the saffron and let cook for twenty minutes over a gentle heat.

Put the soup into a mixer to crush the carcasses, and then pass through a chinois, before returning to the pan.

Heat the soup again and add the potatoes in 1cm thick slices and the larger fish. Cook for twenty minutes.

If there are any smaller fish add them after ten minutes to ensure they are not overcooked.

Preparing la rouille.

Easy recipe without fish liver:

Take two egg yokes, add crushed garlic and whisk in sunflower oil as if preparing a mayonnaise, add salt, pepper, chilli powder and saffron.

With fish liver:

A real rouille is made with the livers of the larger fish, which are mixed with one of the potatoes cooking in the fish soup. After that add sunflower or olive oil, and whisk like a mayonnaise, then add garlic, saffron, salt and pepper, plus a little chilli powder.

To serve

First serve the fish soup with the croutons and the roille. Eat as a starter.

Next slice the fish and put the fillets, serve more soup and add the fillets of fish and potatoes. This is the main course. Add more rouille to taste.

Bonnes dégustation

Claudia’s kitchen