Name: Soupe de Poissons Provençale (Puréed Fish Soup)
Yield: Serves 6 as a First Course
Cuisine: France
Ingredients: salt and black pepper; baked croûtes made with 1 baguette; 2 tablespoons tomato paste; zest of 1 orange, pared in strips; 1 pound/450 g tomatoes, coarsely chopped; 1½ cups/375 ml. sauce rouille; ¼ cup/60 ml. olive oil; 2 pounds/900 g mixed small fish, cleaned and with heads intact; 1 bouquet garni; 2 pinches of saffron threads, soaked in 2 tablespoons boiling water; 2 onions, sliced; 1 cup/100 g grated gruyère cheese; 1 small fennel bulb, trimmed and chopped; generous pinch of cayenne pepper; 1½ quarts/1.5 liters water, more if needed; 3 garlic cloves, chopped; 2 tablespoons anise liquor such as pernod

Preparation info

Serves
6
as a First Course

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

The Country Cooking of France

By Anne Willan

Published 2007

About

This soup, popular in Provence and on the island of Corsica, is a good way to use Mediterranean fish that are often full of bones. You will need a variety of small whole fish, both rich species such as smelt and mackerel and white-fleshed ones such as perch, hake, pollock, or whiting. Choose whatever is fresh and inexpensive. Puréeing is best done with a food mill fitted with the coarsest grid, or you can work the soup through a very coarse strainer or fine-mesh colander. (A food processor