Recipe

Bouillabaisse Marseillaise

6 servings · prep 40 min · cook 1 h

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• dinner
• french
• pescatarian

Authored by the maintainer; Marseille method, adapted to fish a non-Mediterranean home cook can find.

Ingredients

the fish

• 1.5 kg mixed firm-fleshed fish — monkfish tail, John Dory, gurnard, red mullet, conger eel — heads and bones reserved
• 300 g whole shell-on prawns or langoustines
• 500 g mussels, scrubbed and de-bearded (optional but traditional)

the broth

• 1 large fennel bulb, sliced (reserve fronds)
• 1 large leek, white and pale green only, sliced
• 2 medium yellow onions, sliced
• 8 cloves garlic — 4 for the broth, 4 for the rouille — Tropea allium farm
• 6 ripe plum tomatoes, hand-crushed (or 1 × 400 g tin) — Origin not credited
• Generous pinch saffron threads (about 0.5 g) — La Mancha saffron co-op
• Peel of 1 orange (zest only, no pith), in strips — Sicilian citrus orchard
• 60 ml pastis (Ricard or Pernod)
• 150 ml extra-virgin olive oil — Liguria olive mill
• Bouquet garni: thyme, bay, parsley, fennel stalks, tied
• Sea salt to taste — Trapani salt pans
• Black pepper — Kerala pepper estate

the body

• 6 medium waxy potatoes, peeled and halved

the rouille

• 2 egg yolks (for the rouille)
• 1 thick slice white bread, crust removed, soaked in 2 tbsp fish stock
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (for the rouille)

the serve

• 1 baguette, sliced and toasted

Method

1. Make the stock first. Heat 4 tbsp olive oil in a wide pot. Add fish heads, bones, and prawn shells. Stir over medium-high heat 5 minutes. · 5 min
2. Add half the onion, half the fennel, 2 crushed garlic cloves, half the tomato. Cook 5 minutes. Pour in 2 L water and the bouquet garni. Bring to a simmer; simmer 30 minutes, skimming. · 30 min
3. Strain the stock through a fine sieve, pressing on the solids to extract everything. Discard solids. You should have about 1.5 L. Reserve.
4. In the same pot, heat remaining olive oil. Sweat remaining onion, fennel, leek, and 2 chopped garlic cloves over medium heat 8 minutes until soft. · 8 min
5. Add remaining tomato, saffron, orange peel. Cook 3 minutes. Pour in pastis and let it bubble 30 seconds.
6. Pour in the strained stock. Bring to a simmer. Season with salt and pepper. Add potatoes; cook 15 minutes until tender. · 15 min
7. While the broth simmers, make the rouille. In a mortar, pound 4 garlic cloves with 1 tsp salt to a paste. Pound in the soaked bread. Whisk in egg yolks and cayenne. Drizzle in 100 ml olive oil while pounding/whisking constantly — it should emulsify like aioli. · 4 min
8. When the potatoes are tender, layer the fish into the broth in order of cooking time — firmest fish (monkfish, conger) first. Cook 4 minutes. Add softer fish (John Dory, mullet), prawns, and mussels. Cook 4 minutes more, until mussels open and fish is just cooked through. · 8 min
9. Taste broth, adjust salt. Off heat. Sprinkle with fennel fronds.
10. Serve in two courses, Marseille-style: ladle broth over toasted baguette in shallow bowls, with a dollop of rouille floating on top — this is course one. The fish and potatoes are served separately on a platter — this is course two.

Notes

The Marseille charter of 1980 — *La Charte de la Bouillabaisse* — was
a formal agreement among Marseille restaurants on what is and is not
a bouillabaisse. It specifies the fish, the broth method, the saffron,
the orange peel, the pastis, the rouille, and the two-course service.
Most home cooks won't have access to rascasse; substitute and don't
feel bad about it.

The dish is a fisherman's leftover — built from the small bony fish
that couldn't be sold at market — turned into a saffron-orange perfumed
bowl that's now one of the most expensive seafood dishes in Provence.
The arc from poverty food to luxury is the same arc as pho or ramen
or carbonara.