Has anyone ever made Bouillabaisse? Basically a classic French fish soup/stew. Not a French fish, a French soup from fish.
I pronounce it boo-ya-base. I try to give it a French spin. I didn’t take French lessons from third grade to 12th for nothing, you know.
I decided to make it for a birthday party a couple weeks ago. I have eaten and helped make Bouillabaisse, but never actually made it for people on my own.
When I started looking up a recipe, I found that there were more versions of the soup than I could count in one day, and all quite different. I found three versions I liked. I ended up combining them to be most like the one we used to cook at my Aunt Mary’s house in Vermont for Thanksgiving, when some people were going through a no-meat phase. Very classic with saffron, fennel and rouille; the latter a pureed roasted red pepper, garlic sort of mayonnaise-type sauce. Delicious with the garlic toasts that are a required side to the soup.
The recipe I used referred to mostly Emeril Lagasse’s version. Not really wanting to deal with fish heads and shrimp shells, I did not make my own fish stock, (oh, horrors) which it called for, but I was happy to find an acceptable pre-made one at River Valley Market. Not cheap but worth it considering fish heads and all.
Once I got all the ingredients to this soup — which took some serious hunting and gathering — it was not difficult at all. It’s not something you would make every day unless you lived by the sea and had fisherman selling you the many different kinds of fish and shellfish this soup takes at a reasonable price. I spent a small fortune on scallops, lobsters, clams, mussels, shrimp and fish.
The hard part was getting the different seafoods to cook at the times they each needed. If I made it again I would cook the scallops and shrimp separately and add them at the end.
So, try making some boo-ya-base. Use your French accent, play some French café music, wear a beret and you have a party. Of course, you need your bons amis.
See, Madame Burkhart, that French classes did pay off.
— LUCY
Eew! La! La!
La fenetre!
Toot suit!
See voo play!
Sprecken zee French?
Who says I’m not a multi-linguist?
I must say that fish soup thingie you made sounds tres maqnifique!
No fish bones about it! Literally and figuratively!
Au revoir.
— LOU