Name: Chapon Farci (A Marseillais Method of Cooking a Large Rascasse)
Yield: Serves Six
Cuisine: France
Ingredients: ½ litre (17½ fl oz) olive oil; ½ kg (1 lb 2 oz) crevettes, cooked and peeled; ½ kg (1 lb 2 oz) mussels, steamed open; 20 g (1 oz) dried cèpes; fresh parsley, thyme and fennel cayenne, salt and pepper; 1 rascasse rouge weighing 2 to 2 ½ kg (4 ½–5 ¾ lb) uncleaned; 2 cloves garlic, crushed; 2 medium onions; 100 ml (3½ fl oz) fresh cream; ½ kg (1 lb 2 oz) tomatoes; ½ kg (1 lb 2 oz) rice (from the Camargue, if available); 75 ml (5 tbs) cognac; ½ litre (17½ fl oz) white wine; ½ litre (17½ fl oz) fish stock

Preparation info

Serves
Six

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Mediterranean Seafood

By Alan Davidson

Published 1981

About

Chapon is a local name for the rascasse rouge, of which the largest and finest specimens in the Marseille fish market are (or used to be) bought, almost every day, by M. Alphonse Mounier of the restaurant Chez Fonfon in the Vallon-des-Auffes, the little fishing port whose entrance from the sea lies under a bridge of the corniche to the east of the city. It was there that he showed me how he made this specialité de l