bouillabaisse n° 91 du guide de pierrette

Bouillabaisse (serves 4)

 

Preparation Time: 1 ½ hours
Cooking Time: 1 ½ hours

 

Ingredients:
– 4 scorpion fish, scaled and cleaned
– 4 weever fish, scaled and cleaned
– 4 slices of conger eel
– 1 2-pound (1 kg) St. Pierre (John Dory) fish
– 6 potatoes
– 20 slices baguette
– 1 garlic clove
– salt, pepper

For the fish base:
– 2 pounds (1 kg) rock fish
– 2 leeks
– 2 onions
– 1 head of garlic
– 6 sprigs of parsley
– 6 sprigs of fennel
– 4 tomatoes
– ¼ cup olive oil
– 2 bay leaves
– 1 piece orange peel
– 1 Cayenne pepper
– 2 dashes of saffron powder

 

Preparation:

Do not scale the rock fish. Rinse them and clean the largest ones. Wash the leeks and cut them coarsely. Peel, wash, and chop the onions. Peel and crush the garlic cloves. Wash and dry the parsley and fennel. Crush the tomatoes.
In a cooking pot over low heat, brown the vegetables with the olive oil, bay leaves, orange peel and pepper. Cook for 15 minutes. Add the rock fish and season to taste. Allow everything to brown for 15 minutes and then add 3 quarts (3 liters) of boiling water. Simmer for another 10 minutes.
Once removed from the heat, remove the sprigs of fennel and the orange peel. Put what remains through a food mill equipped with a coarse-texture grinding dish and then through a strainer. Add the saffron. Season to taste and set aside.

Peel, wash, and cut the potatoes into large cubes. Cook them in a stewpot for 30 minutes in equal parts of fish base and water. Salt. Set aside.
Make the aioli.
Toast the baguette slices and rub them with a clove of garlic. Place them in a soup tureen.

Bring the rest of the fish base to a boil. Poach the fish in the base, starting with the firm fish, and let them cook over low heat for 6 to 10 minutes. Arrange the potatoes on a large dish and place the fish on top.

Pour the bouillabaisse in the tureen over the croutons. Accompany with aioli served in the mortar in which it was prepared.