Bouillabaisse Marseillaise

Ingredients

• 1.5 kg mixed whole white fish, gutted and scaled (gurnard, John Dory, monkfish, red mullet, conger eel)
• 800g small rockfish, or fish heads and bones, for the broth
• 300g raw langoustines or large prawns (optional)
• 150ml olive oil
• 2 onions, sliced
• 1 leek, sliced
• 1 fennel bulb, sliced
• 6 garlic cloves, crushed
• 4 ripe tomatoes, chopped
• 2 tbsp tomato puree
• 2 generous pinches saffron threads
• 2 strips dried orange peel
• 1 tsp fennel seeds
• 3 thyme sprigs and 2 bay leaves
• 600g waxy potatoes, peeled and cut into 2cm slices
• 2 litres water
• Salt and black pepper
• 1 egg yolk, at room temperature, for the rouille
• 3 garlic cloves crushed to a paste with salt, for the rouille
• 1 small cooked potato, for the rouille
• A pinch each of saffron and cayenne, for the rouille
• 200ml olive oil, for the rouille
• 1 baguette, sliced and toasted

Before you cook

• Ask the fishmonger to gut and scale the fish and to hand over the heads and bones.
• Cut the larger fish into thick cross-sections on the bone and leave the small ones whole.
• Crush the saffron threads between your fingers into a small bowl and cover them with two tablespoons of warm water.
• Slice the onions, leek and fennel bulb thinly.
• Take the egg yolk for the rouille out of the fridge so it comes to room temperature.

Steps

1. Warm half the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat and add the onions, leek and sliced fennel.
2. Cook the vegetables for ten minutes until soft and translucent but not coloured.
3. Stir in the garlic, tomatoes, tomato puree, fennel seeds, orange peel, thyme and bay, and cook for five minutes.
4. Add the rockfish and bones and press them down into the vegetables with a wooden spoon.
5. Pour in the water, bring it to the boil, and skim off the foam.
6. Simmer the broth uncovered for forty minutes.
7. Push the broth through a coarse sieve or a food mill, working the solids hard so the flesh goes through and only bones stay behind.
8. Return the strained broth to a clean pot and stir in half the saffron water.
9. Pound the garlic paste, cooked potato, saffron and cayenne to a smooth paste in a mortar to start the rouille.
10. Whisk in the egg yolk, then add the olive oil drop by drop at first and then in a thin steady stream, whisking constantly, until you have a thick red-gold sauce.
11. Season the rouille with salt and set it aside.
12. Bring the broth to a hard boil and add the potato slices.
13. Cook the potatoes for ten minutes until nearly tender.
14. Lay in the firmest fish first and boil hard for five minutes.
15. Add the delicate fish and any langoustines and boil for a further five minutes, until the fish just flakes at the thickest point.
16. Lift the fish, langoustines and potatoes onto a warm serving platter with a slotted spoon.
17. Stir the rest of the saffron water into the broth and season it with salt and pepper.
18. Rub the toasted baguette slices with a cut garlic clove and spread them thickly with rouille.
19. Ladle the broth into warm bowls over the croutons and take the platter of fish to the table alongside.