Bouillabaisse Serves 6-8
Bouillabaisse is a participatory event, roll up your sleeves and dig in!
This is a great meal to prepare over the Holidays. It is our traditional New Year’s Eve feast when we stay at home and entertain friends.
You can prepare the soup base up to 1 month ahead of time. Once the soup base is prepared it takes less than 30 minutes to serve hot fragrant bowls of Bouillabaisse.
Bouillabaisse has a certain mystique about it. Legend has it that the goddess Venus prepared this dish for her husband, Vulcan, with a goal of inducing sleep so she could have her way with him! Saffron was thought to induce sleep. Another food writer credits an abbess in Marseilles who had this meatless one pot meal prepared every Friday as a staple in her convent. Yet another writer touts bouillabaisse as a delicious way to mask using cheap, plentiful, yet fresh fish. You choose, they’re all good stories to begin great dinner table conversation.
A great meal for a crowd, easy to prepare, Bouillabaisse is elegant and delicious. You can vary the type of fish you use. I love to use tiny clams called cockles when I can find them, and mussels. However, one of my best friends is allergic to shellfish and another avoids shellfish for religious reasons. It does not take away from the dish to omit shellfish. The saffron flavor is distinctive and matches very well with fish and I think the leeks give the broth a velvety quality. Fish such as monk, halibut, haddock, and Mako shark, readily absorb the soup flavors and will not flake apart. I always buy the freshest fish rather than go by the recipe. As long as you have the approximate amount of fish for your diners, your Bouillabaisse will be perfect. You can also add a lobster to the pot (or one for each diner), adjust the remaining fish accordingly. The secret ingredient in Bouillabaisse is saffron. It gives the broth a rich yellow hue and imparts a unique flavor to the dish. Buy powdered saffron or threads; follow directions on package. (Information about Saffron and how to use in cooking is a Blog in itself. I’ll save it for another day.)
You can prepare the soup base ahead of time and even freeze it. Prepared this way you can have a spectacular dinner on the table for 6-8 people within thirty minutes. Round out your meal with hot crusty French bread and a generous green salad. If you’re cooking for two or four, prepare the base as directed below, freeze what you don’t use and adjust quantities of fish. You can easily double the recipe as well.
Base
1 large sweet onion
2 leeks
2 bulbs fennel
3-4 large cloves garlic (to your taste)
one-third cup olive oil
1 – 28 ounce can Pastene whole peeled tomatoes
2 cups water
Saffron (one-eighth teaspoon powder or one-half teaspoon threads)
2 teaspoons salt – or to taste
pepper to taste
1 bay leaf
one pound monkfish
one pound halibut or codfish
one pound mussels
one pound cherrystone clams
one-half pound scallops
one-half pound large uncooked shrimp
Prepare leeks. Slice off the root end and slice in half lengthwise about four inched into the white part. Pull leaves apart at the neck where the green and white merge, rinse under cool running water to remove any sand or dirt. Shake off excess water and slice in one-half inch pieces. Peel onion and slice in half, then lengthwise in thin pieces. Slice fennel bulbs in small bite size pieces; keep some of the willowy fronds from the fennel tops for garnish. Heat your soup pot over a medium heat and add half of the olive oil. Sauté onions and leeks until soft but not brown about five minutes. Peel and slice garlic in thin pieces and sauté another minute. Crush canned tomatoes and the juice with your hands, add to soup pot, and stir well. Add water, salt, pepper, bay leaf and simmer 10 minutes. Add saffron and turn off heat. At this point you can cool the base to room temperature and refrigerate or freeze up to 1 month.
Prepare the fish. Wash mussels and clams, remove beards and soak in cool water with one tablespoon flour or corn meal for 30 minutes. The shellfish will exchange the sand for the flour or meal. Rinse under running water for one minute and drain in a colander. Cut other fish into large bite size chunks. Heat the soup base to boiling, add shell fish except shrimp, cover, lower flame to medium low and let simmer 10 minutes or until the shells open. (If you’re using one lobster per person, let them simmer in the base 10 minutes before adding other shellfish.) Add the remaining fish, olive oil, stir gently, cover pot, turn off heat and let sit 5 minutes, add shrimp, poke raw shrimp so it is submerged in the broth, let sit another 10 minutes. The fish will cook to perfection in the hot soup. Do not stir, ladle gently into soup plates making sure that each person has a taste of each kind of seafood.
Gremolata – Garnish (optional)
One-half cup minced fennel fronds
One lemon – rasp rind
Toss together lightly and strew over filled bowls of Bouillabaisse as you serve.
Serve with hot crusty bread and serve a green salad as a separate course following the bouillabaisse. Traditionally bouillabaisse is eaten with the clams and mussels as spoons to scoop up the fish and broth
Hot Crusty Bread
Pre-heat oven to 400. Place un-sliced bread on wire rack in middle of oven for five minutes. Use an oven mitt to hold loaf while you cut it in thick slices.
Great Greens Salad
4 cups arugula
4 cups torn romaine lettuce
1 Bosc pear, or a pomegranate, or orange (your choice)
1 clove garlic
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
one-half teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons lemon juice
Fresh ground pepper, optional
1 teaspoon rasped lemon rind
Optional additions to salad – one-third cup toasted walnut pieces, bite size pieces double crème soft blue cheese(to taste)
Rub salad bowl with split garlic clove, add lettuce and arugula, cover with a damp towel and refrigerate. In a mortar or blender place garlic, mustard and salt. Mash with pestle or blend to pulverize garlic. Stir in lemon juice, thread in olive oil while you continue mixing or blending. Toss dressing with salad just before serving, strew fruit on top, rasp lemon rind over salad and give the salad a few grinds of fresh black pepper.
