The Perfect Bouillabaisse

[PopsicleToze]

Bouillabaisse is my all-time favorite restaurant meal, and I'm going to Broussard's Restaurant (New Orleans) tonight, so I already know what I'm having. However, I've never made it at home. I don't know why. I guess I consider bouillabaisse so perfect that maybe I'm afraid that my attempts won't do it justice. The time has come for me to make this dish. If you have the perfect recipe for bouillabaisse, please share.

I live on the Gulf Coast -- so I don't have all of the varieties of European seafood (I've never seen a mullet), but we have some pretty good stuff down here, and there's a good seafood market that usually can get me everything I need.

Thanks!

Rhonda

[paulraphael]

I recently had a request for Bouillabaisse, so I did a bit of research. The only consistent, defining ingredient, as far as I can tell, is contention: no two people seem to agree on what makes an authentic bouillabaisse. People in the Mediterranean are convinced that it's impossible to make one outside the region, with non-indigenous fish. But people in neighboring villages and even neighboring restaurants fight it out just as often.

The recipes I found, while wildly divergent, all included many kinds of fish ... often seven varieties. Some considered shellfish vital; other considered them blasphemous.

James Peterson has some good looking recipes, both in his soup book and his seafood book. He's taken the louder arguments into consideration.

I decided to be lazy and just made a bourride ... a less famous soup from the same region, with just one kind of fish, thickened with aioli. Delicious! And much less to fight about.

[Starkman]

I remember as a kid (long ago!) when my mother and I went to see my grandmother. We all went to this restaurant, and I had this bowl of red-sauced seafood stuff. Man, I was in heaven. For years I would remember that day, but I had no idea what the hek it was that I had eaten. All I could remember was that it had a red-sauce base and lots of seafood goodies.

Years later, my then wife and I, at her folks' house, were talking about what to have for dinner. Seafood came up, and I mentioned, just kind of out of the blue, that dish I ate as a kid. My wife said, "Oh, you mean Bouillabaisse." (Is THAT what that word means! I always wondered what that meant!). "Bouillabaisse?" I said? I had no idea if that's what it was.

Well, my wife's father made it for dinner, and I about feel on the floor, both from the flavor, but also from the take-back to that memory of eating it in that restaurant. For there before my eyes was that same bowl of red-sauced seafood stuff...called bouillabaisse. Heaven had truly come down to earth!

Well, I didn't get the recipe that night, and I haven't tried making it myself, but I will, one day.

Starkman

[ray goud]

So, it seems like few people are responding to this question/post. To which I have this advice:

Look at Julia's recipe in "From Julia Child's Kitchen", and feel free to add/subtract and substitute as you wish. I recommend you keep the roulade, whatever you do, because it is added by the eater at will. My first Bouillabaisse was at a swanky place in Wellfleet, Cape Cod, and it was awe-inspiring (probably partly because it was served in deep glass bowls) . Since then I have made, and had it made, in countless forms, with numerous variations, and it is ALWAYS good, as long as you use some kind of fish/clam stock, minimally cook the fish, have plenty of leeks and saffron, and taste as you go. Enjoy.

Ray

Edited May 28, 2009 by ray goud (log)