Bouillabaisse

On Saturday, my friend Sheri and I went to the St. Lawrence Market to pick up the ingredients for bouillabaise (fish stew). Lucky for me Sheri is always up for a food stop to fuel up before the shopping so we stopped at Richtree's for rosti, sausage and coffee before we went to the market.

The soup is really a mixed fish stew served over a piece of crispy bread layered with Swiss cheese and served with a dollop of spicy "rouille" on top. This is truly a "special occasion" recipe as the cost of the ingredients do add up and there are a lot of parts to the recipe. However, the results are truly remarkable and even as I write this I am remembering how delicious it was!

I found this recipe in a Time-Life book on the Cooking of Provincial France. I picked this up at a second-hand bookstore many years ago as it is written by one of my favourite authors, M. F. K. Fisher (if you like to read books about food, read anything written by her, she is a wonderful writer). It was a lucky find. The way that Sheri and I prepared this, it was heavily adapted from the recipe, which makes it less authentic to the French original (i.e. no eels) but a little bit easier to do and just as delicious.

Sheri and I cooked up the soup and, keeping with the French theme, we also prepared creme caramel for dessert. Jeff and Jon showed up to enjoy the food (and of course to tell us how good it was!).

Bouillabaisse (based on recipes from The Cooking of Provincial France - 1968)

Soup Base (court bouillon)

2 onions, thinly sliced

2 leeks, thinly sliced, white and pale green parts only

2/3 cup olive oil

4 cups fish stock + 2 cups white wine + 2 cups water (or a mix to make 8 cups)

1 ml can chopped tomatoes

1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds, crushed

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

2 pieces of orange peel, about 7 cm long and 2 cm wide

1 teaspoon dried thyme

2 bay leaves

1/4 teaspoon saffron threads

salt and pepper to taste

* In a large stock pot, saute the onions and leeks in the oil until tender. Add remaining ingredients and cook uncovered for 30 minutes.

Fish and Seafood

2 tilapia fillets

1/2 pound bay scallops

1 pound mussels

1 pound small shrimp

* Cut up the fillets into small chunks. Peel and devein the shrimp. Rinse and clean the mussels. Drop the fish, scallops and mussels into the simmering stew. Cook for about 5 minutes. Add the shrimp and cook an additional 5 minutes.

Croutes

Slices of baguette, toasted (one large or two smalls per person)

1/2 cup freshly grated parmesean mixed with 1/2 cup grated Emmenthal (mild Swiss) cheese

Rouille (hot pepper sauce)

2 large roasted sweet red peppers

2 cloves garlic

3 tablespoons olive oil

3 drops Tabasco

1/2 cup water

* Whiz everything together in a blender. Done.

To Serve

In a bowl, place the toasted bread and layer with the cheese mixture. Ladle the fish stew over the bread and cheese. Pass around the rouille to drizzle on top.