No. 289

Bouillabaisse

Prepare one-half pound of red snapper, one-half pound of lobster, one-half pound of perch, one-half pound of sea bass, one-half pound of blackfish, one-half pound of sheepshead, one-half pound of cod, one-half pound of mackerel. Cut all of these fish into two and a quarter inch squares. Mince a fine Julienne of a quarter of a pound of carrots, two ounces of chopped onions, and two ounces of leeks; have also two cloves of garlic. Heat in a saucepan, one gill of sweet oil, add to it the vegetables and garlic, fry them without allowing to color, then add one tablespoonful of flour, mix all together, and put in the fish; moisten to its height with half white wine and half water, adding two medium sized peeled tomatoes, cut in two, pressed out, and chopped up coarsely; let boil for fifteen minutes on a quick fire to reduce the moistening, then add one clove of crushed and chopped garlic, some saffron, salt, pepper, the pulp of a lemon pared to the quick, and chopped parsley; remove the two whole cloves of garlic. Serve the broth or stock in a soup tureen, the fish separately as well as thin slices of toasted bread; should the moistening not be sufficient for the soup, then add some fish broth to it.

Another Way.—Have one pound of codfish, one of sea bass, and one of chicken halibut; cut these in two and a quarter inch diameter pieces. Put into a saucepan three pounds of fish bones and parings with some carrots and onions finely minced, white wine, parsley, garlic, thyme, bay leaf, salt, and pepper. Moisten with half a bottleful of white wine and sufficient water to cover the fish entirely, then boil for twenty minutes and strain. Mince up a quarter of a pound of leeks, a quarter of a pound of onions, add three whole cloves of garlic, and fry these in a gill of oil without letting the mattain a color; then put in the fish, and two pounds of live lobster cut in half inch slices from the tail. Moisten with a fish stock and white wine, a pinch of saffron, and lemon juice. Boil on a brisk fire for fifteen minutes, then remove the garlic; put some pieces of toasted bread into the soup tureen, pour the broth over, and serve the fish in a separate tureen.

← No. 288 Benoiton Soup Soups & Broths No. 290 Bragance Soup →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer gives two versions of the same dish: a quick one built on wine and water, and a better one built on a fish fumet made from bones and trimmings. The second is the one to cook. A few of his terms and quantities need translating.

Gill and other measuresA gill is half a cup, so one gill of oil is 4 fl oz — generous but correct for the volume of vegetables. "Half a bottleful" of white wine is about 12 oz. A "quick" or "brisk" fire means high heat, not a simmer.
Sweet oilNineteenth-century American cookbooks say sweet oil for olive oil, "sweet" indicating oil that was fresh rather than rancid. Use a plain, not aggressively fruity, olive oil.
The hinge: boil it hardThe instruction to boil rather than simmer is not carelessness. A rolling boil drives the olive oil into the wine and stock as an emulsion, which is what gives bouillabaisse its body and its pale, slightly thickened broth. Held at a gentle simmer, the oil separates and floats.
Fish that have changed namesBlackfish is tautog; sheepshead here is the Atlantic porgy relative, not the freshwater drum; "chicken halibut" means a small young halibut of a few pounds, sold simply as halibut fillet now. Any firm white saltwater fish substitutes — snapper, bass, monkfish, hake, conger. Keep at least one oily fish and one gelatinous one for the broth's texture.
Cutting and stagingTwo and a quarter inch squares are large pieces, and they need the full fifteen minutes. If you substitute thin flounder or sole fillets they will fall apart; add them in the last three or four minutes instead.
LobsterThe second version wants two pounds of live lobster cut in half-inch slices from the tail — that is, the tail split crosswise through the shell. Buy it live or, at minimum, whole and raw; cooked lobster meat added to a fifteen-minute boil will be inedible.
"Pared to the quick"Peel the lemon down past every trace of white pith, then chop the flesh. The pith is what turns the broth bitter.
Saffron"Some saffron" means a large pinch of threads, perhaps 20 to 30, crumbled in and given a few minutes in the hot liquid to bloom. Turmeric gives colour and not the flavour.
Yield and serviceThe first version uses four pounds of fish, the second about five with the lobster; enough for perhaps six to eight. Broth in one tureen, fish in another, toasted bread — thick, dry, from a plain white loaf — alongside. Ranhofer's version includes no rouille.

A Little History

Bouillabaisse belongs to Marseille and the Provençal coast, where it is traditionally described as the fisherman's meal made from the rockfish too bony or too small to sell; the name is generally traced to the Provençal bolhabaissa, from the verbs for boil and lower, describing the moment the pot is brought up to a hard boil and then pulled back. Charles Ranhofer, chef of Delmonico's in New York, printed this in The Epicurean (1894), and what is interesting is how thoroughly he has translated it: the Mediterranean rascasse, weever and conger are gone, replaced by red snapper, blackfish, sheepshead and cod from the New York markets, with American lobster standing in for the spiny langouste. He keeps what actually makes the dish — the olive oil, the garlic, the saffron, the hard boil, the broth served apart from the fish — and swaps out everything that could not be bought that morning. That is the working method of the whole book, and the reason a Marseille purist would object to the fish list while conceding the technique.