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Bouillabaisse, Marseillaise
Procure a one-pound live lobster, two very fresh eels and one very small sea bass. Cut the head and small claws from the lobster, then cut it, shells and meat, in six even pieces. Remove the head, trim the fins and skin the two eels, then cut each one in pieces of two inches long. Cut off the head and trim the bass, then cut it crosswise in six equal slices. Place all these fishes on a plate and keep in a cold place until required. Heat in a saucepan three tablespoons oil, add two chopped white onions and three chopped, well-cleaned leeks, gently brown for ten minutes, stirring occasionally; add three tablespoons flour, mix well while cooking for two minutes, then pour in one pint fresh crushed or canned tomatoes, one pint water, the fish heads and skins of eels, half teaspoon Spanish saffron, one tablespoon salt, half teaspoon white pepper, two crushed beans garlic and three branches parsley. Mix with a spoon for three minutes, then let briskly boil for forty minutes, mixing occasionally meanwhile. Remove, strain the sauce through a strainer in another saucepan, reset on the fire and let come to a boil, then add the fish; lightly mix, cover the pan and let gently boil for thirty minutes. Remove, arrange the fish in a large, deep dish, pour the sauce over, arrange six slices French bread toasts around, sprinkle half teaspoon freshly chopped parsley over and serve.
A New York hotel kitchen's version of the Marseille classic, written for cooks who had a live lobster and an eel monger to hand. The broth is sound; the fish timings are not.
- The hinge: cut the cooking timeThirty minutes of gentle boiling will turn the bass to cotton and the lobster to rubber. Bring the strained broth to a hard boil, add the lobster pieces for about 5 minutes, then the eel for 4-5, then the bass slices for 3-4 minutes off a bare simmer. Total fish cooking is under 15 minutes.
- "Two crushed beans garlic"Beans here means cloves — two crushed garlic cloves. The phrasing probably reflects a literal rendering of the French gousse (a pod or husk).
- SaffronHalf a teaspoon of saffron threads is generous but not wrong for a pot this size; measure loosely packed threads, not powder, and crumble them into the broth. Powdered saffron at the same volume will overwhelm and often turns medicinal.
- EelsFresh eel is now a special order at best; European eel is critically endangered and American eel stocks are managed. Conger, monkfish, or any firm-fleshed white fish holds up the same way in the broth. If you do use eel, it must be fully cooked — the blood carries a protein toxin that heat destroys, which is why raw eel is never served.
- Fish heads make the brothThe heads and eel skins are not optional garnish; they are the entire body of the stock. If your fishmonger fillets the bass for you, ask for the frame and head as well, or add a few cheap rockfish heads.
- Strain properlyThe recipe says only "through a strainer." Press the solids firmly to extract the tomato and leek pulp — this is what thickens the broth alongside the flour.
- FlourThe three-tablespoon roux is a hotel-kitchen habit rather than Provençal practice; authentic bouillabaisse is bound by emulsified oil and pressed fish. Leave it in for a thicker, more stew-like dish, or omit it and reduce the broth instead.
- Yield and servingSix portions, one toast each. Rub the toasts with raw garlic and, if you want the Marseille version, serve a saffron-and-chilli rouille alongside for spreading.
Bouillabaisse began as the working meal of Marseille fishermen, cooked from the bony rockfish — rascasse, weever, conger — that would not sell at market, and the name is generally traced to the Provençal bolhabaissa, roughly "boil and lower," describing the sharp boil that is then dropped back. What arrived in American cookbooks by 1900 was already a translation: no rascasse in the Atlantic, so lobster and sea bass stand in, and a flour roux appears where the Marseille original relies on hard-boiled oil and broken-up fish. The International Cook Book was compiled by Alexander Filippini, long of Delmonico's, and reflects exactly that milieu — grand hotel cooking that reached for the prestige of a regional French name while substituting whatever the New York market supplied. The saffron and the garlic-rubbed bread are the parts that survived the crossing intact.