Name: Bouillabaisse
Yield: Serves 4 very hungry people
Cuisine: French
Ingredients: 5 strands of saffron; 1 egg yolk; 3 fresh plum tomatoes, seeded and chopped (or 18 ounces/500 g canned Italian plum tomatoes); 16 croutons of sliced, toasted baguette; extra-virgin olive oil; 2 ounces/56 ml extra-virgin olive oil; juice of 1 lemon; 4 garlic cloves; salt and pepper; 1 lb/450 g skate wing, skinned, on the bone, cut into 4 pieces; 1 lb/450 g monkfish tail, skinned, on the bone, cut into 4 pieces; 8 small red bliss potatoes; 2 leeks, white part only, washed and thinly sliced; 2 ounces/56 ml olive oil; 12 fresh shrimp, heads on and unpeeled (I guess you could live without the heads. Philistine!); 1½ lb/675 g whole red snapper, dourade, or striped bass, head removed and set aside (you’ll need it), scaled and gutted but skin still on, cut right across the spine into 4 steaks; 3 pistils (strands) of saffron; peel of ½ orange; 1 fennel bulb, thinly sliced; 2 small onions, thinly sliced; 1 healthy shot/28 ml of Pernod; 8 garlic cloves; 1 bouquet garni; 2 lb/900 g tiny little fish, like porgies or whiting, guts out but heads on; small pinch of sea salt

Preparation info

Serves
4
very hungry people

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Les Halles Cookbook

By Anthony Bourdain

Published 2004

About

What is an “authentic” bouillabaisse? That’s an invitation to a fistfight if there ever was one. Frenchmen living in Marseille can’t agree, so there’ll be no consensus here, I assure you. Above and beyond the “lobster, oui?” or “lobster, non” question—and the various interpretive issues, which we could spend the rest of our natural lives discussing—there’s the issue of fish. You’re simply not going to be finding any congre, loup de mer, rascasse, or rouget near you. This, my b