Bouillabaisse
Region: France, Provence
Category: Stews
Season: Any
Difficulty: Labor Intensive
Please read about the history of bouillabaisse and how to cook it before proceeding.
Yield: Makes 10 to 12 servings
Preparation Time: 4 hours
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1. Gut, scale, and clean the fish. If the fishmonger cleans and fillets your fish, have him save the heads, tails, and carcasses. Cut the fish into 4 x 2 1/2 -inch pieces.
2. Prepare the fish broth. Rinse the fish heads, tails, and carcasses in cold water. Break the carcasses into pieces. In a large stockpot, melt the butter over medium heat, then and cook the sliced onions until soft but not brown, about 6 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the fish heads and bones and cover with the cold water. Put in one of the bouquet garni and the wine. Bring to a boil, skimming occasionally, then reduce the heat to low, partially cover, and simmer for 2 hours. Strain the fish broth through a conical strainer and set aside to cool. Discard all the fish heads and carcasses. You will have 10 cups of fish broth when finished. Clean the stockpot because you will need it in step 4.
3. After you get the fish broth going, marinate the fish in a large ceramic or glass bowl or pan with 1/4 cup of the olive oil, half of the chopped garlic, and the saffron threads for 2 hours in the refrigerator.
4. In the large stockpot, heat the remaining 1 1/4 cups olive oil over medium heat, then cook the chopped onions, leeks, and celery for 15 minutes, stirring often. Add the tomatoes, the remaining garlic, the remaining bouquet garni, the orange zest, and fennel seeds. Stir in the reserved fish broth and the saffron steeped in wine and season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for 40 minutes. The broth can be left like this, covered, for many hours, over very low heat or using a heat diffuser.
5. When you are ready to prepare the final stages of the bouillabaisse, bring the broth back to a furious boil. It should be boiling like mad. Keep the broth boiling furiously so the oil emulsifies. Add the oily fish and boil, uncovered, over very high heat for 8 minutes. Shake the pot to prevent sticking. Now put the firm-fleshed white fish in and boil hard for 6 minutes. Add more boiling water if necessary to cover the fish. Shake the casserole or pot occasionally. Mix the tomato paste and anise liqueur.
6. Carefully remove the fish from the broth with a slotted spoon and spatula or skimmer and transfer to a large bowl or deep platter. Arrange the fish on the platter more or less in the order in which you put them into the pot. Keep them warm by covering with a sheet of aluminum foil.
7. Strain the broth through a fine mesh strainer into a soup tureen or large bowl, discarding what doesn't go through. Whisk in the tomato paste-and-anise mixture. Sprinkle the platter and soup tureen with the parsley and serve with the croutes and sauce rouille on separate plates.
Variation: Serve the fish with boiled potatoes, thinly sliced and buttered. Some cooks, especially in restaurants, will add a cut-up live lobster at the same time as when the oily fish go in.
Rouille is the traditional mayonnaise accompaniment to bouillabaisse, containing abundant chili pepper and garlic, a powerful and perilous sauce for many palates.
Posted: 01/09/2007Sauce Rouille et Croutes
Region: France, Provence
Category: Basic Recipes and Sauces
Season: Any
Difficulty: Medium Difficulty
In the Middle Ages, there was no doubt that saffron was a luxury spice. Saffron was rare and expensive, and grown for export in only three places: Albi in Languedoc, Aquila in Abruzzo, and in Catalonia. A pound of saffron could cost as much as a horse. In Languedoc and Provence, the local saffron may not have been quite that expensive because it did not have to travel very great distances, although it is always expensive to harvest. The saffron was grown in Albi and bought at the Toulouse or Montpellier spice markets. The most popular spice mix was black pepper and ginger, with the addition of smaller amounts of other spices such as saffron. When black pepper was in short supply in India, traders would replace it with ersatz pepper such maniguette (malaguette), which is known as guinea pepper or grains of paradise (Aframomum melegueta), and came from the coast of Guinea from the fifteenth century onwards. A recent study showed that black pepper is used in 16 and 19 percent of the recipes, respectively, in the two earliest French cookery works, the Enseingnemenz qui enseingnent a apareiller toutes manieres de viandes and Quomodo praeparanda et condienda omnia cibaria quae comuniter comeduntur, from the early fourteenth century, and grains of paradise not at all in the first and in 2 percent of the recipes in the second of the manuscripts. But by the time of the famous cookery work the Viandier by the first notable French chef, Taillevent, later in the fourteenth century, grains of paradise appeared in 14 percent of the recipes, meaning that black pepper was in short supply. Once the New World chili peppers began to arrive in the sixteenth century they too were added to the repertoire of spices used in southern France, their piquancy being noted by early writers.
Rouille is the traditional mayonnaise accompaniment to bouillabaisse, containing abundant chili pepper and garlic, a powerful and perilous sauce for many palates. Some cooks add tomato paste for coloring only, but I don't find this necessary because the saffron and cayenne are assertive enough in coloring. In Provencal home cooking, the addition of saffron often allows the cook to call the preparation a "bouillabaisse."
Yield: Makes 1 1/4 cups sauce rouille and 10 servings of croutes
Preparation Time: 1:15 hours
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1. Soak the diced bread in the fish broth. Squeeze the broth out. Mash the garlic cloves in a mortar with the salt until mushy. Place the bread, mashed garlic (saving 1 garlic clove for the croutes), red pepper, saffron, egg yolk and black pepper in a food processor and blend for 30 seconds then pour in 1 cup olive oil through the feed tube in a slow, thin, steady stream while the machine is running. Refrigerate for 1 hour before serving. Store whatever you don't use in the refrigerator for up to a week.
2. Meanwhile, prepare the croutes. In a large skillet, melt the butter with the remaining 1/4 cup olive oil over medium heat with the remaining crushed garlic until it begins to turn light brown. Remove and discard the garlic.
3. Lightly brush both sides of each bread slice with the melted butter and oil and set aside. When all the slices are brushed place them back in the skillet and cook until they are a very light brown on both sides. Set aside until needed.
Variation: Another way to make the croutes is to toast them first and then rub both sides with a cut piece of garlic.
Note: If the rouille is separating, add 2 to 3 tablespoons of the fish broth and whisk it in until smooth and re-emulsified.
Posted: 01/09/200715-Minute Bouillabaisse 
| Ingredients : | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | tbl | extra-virgin olive oil |
| 1 | med | onion |
| 3 | clv | garlic |
| 1 | lrg | tomato or one 15-ounce can whole tomatoes 2 8-ounce bottles clam juice |
| 2 | tsp | ground fennel |
| Salt and freshly ground black pepper | ||
| 1/4 | tsp | saffron threads |
| 3 | x | pieces monkfish or swordfish (about 4 ounces each) 3 pieces halibut, snapper or sea bass (about 4 ounces each) 8 ounces cleaned squid bodies |
| 1 | sm | French baguette |
| Rouille: | ||
| 1 | clv | garlic |
| 1/2 | cup | roasted red bell peppers from a jar 1 egg yolk or 1/4 cup egg substitute (see note) 1/4 teaspoon saffron threads |
| 7 | tbl | extra-virgin olive oil |
| Salt | ||
How to cook :
Preheat broiler and adjust the broiling rack so it is 3 to 6 inches from the heat source.
Put oil in a large, deep, heavy skillet over medium-high heat.
Peel and quarter the onion.
Peel the garlic. Put the onion and garlic in a food processor.
Pulse just until chopped.
Scrape into the skillet, raise the heat to high, and cook for 2 minutes.
Meanwhile, core the tomato, put it in the food processor and pulse until chopped.
(If using canned tomatoes, drain the tomatoes and coarsely chop.
)Add the tomato, clam juice, fennel, and salt and pepper to taste to the skillet.
Over the skillet, crush saffron between your fingers.
Stir well, cover and bring to a boil.
Meanwhile, cut each piece of fish in half.
Reduce the heat under the skillet to medium, add the fish, cover and cook for 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, cut the squid into rings.
Add the squid for the final 1 minute.
While the seafood cooks, cut the baguette on the diagonal into 9 1/2-inch slices.
Put 8 of the slices on a baking sheet and toast both sides in the broiler, about 1 minute on each side.
Reserve remaining slice for rouille.
To make rouille: Drop the garlic clove down the chute of the food processor with the motor running.
Stop the motor and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.
Add the roasted peppers, egg yolk, reserved bread slice and saffron, crushed between your fingers.
Puree, then with the motor running, gradually add olive oil through the chute until the mixture has the consistency of mayonnaise.
Season to taste with salt.
Divide the seafood and broth among 4 soup plates.
Spread the rouille on the toasted baguette slices and put 2 slices on top of each plate.
Serve any remaining rouille in a small bowl at the table.
Note: This rouille calls for uncooked egg yolk.
Be sure to use a clean, uncracked egg.
Because of the possibility of salmonella, we do not recommend this recipe for people in a high-risk group for contracting food poisoning.
This group includes the elderly, the very young, the chronically ill, pregnant women or others with a weakened immune system.
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