Marseille · A fishermen’s dish since antiquity

Bouillabaisse

Name: Bouillabaisse
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Marseille
Ingredients: 1.5 kg mixed Mediterranean fish: rascasse, John Dory, monkfish, red mullet; 500 g small rockfish or fish bones for the broth; 2 onions, 1 fennel bulb, 4 tomatoes, 6 cloves of garlic; A generous pinch of saffron, a strip of orange peel, thyme, bay; 100 ml olive oil, 50 ml pastis; Potatoes, a baguette for croutons; Rouille: egg yolk, garlic, saffron, olive oil, cayenne

The fishermen’s soup of Marseille: rockfish, saffron, fennel and orange peel, served in two acts with rouille and croutons. The Riviera’s most argued-over dish.

Rich6

Umami8

Fresh6

Spice3

Sweet2

The wine

A dry Provence rosé or a white Cassis; the saffron and garlic want freshness, not oak.

Bouillabaisse began as what fishermen cooked from the fish they could not sell: rascasse, John Dory, conger eel and the small bony rockfish that give the broth its depth. The 1980 Marseille charter fixes the rules: at least four kinds of fish from a list, the broth served first, the fish presented whole and then cut at the table. Everything else is a fish soup.

The dish travelled along the coast to Monaco, where the palaces serve it with lobster and a silver tureen, and north to the brasseries of Paris and the French bistros of German cities. Le Flair in Düsseldorf makes a version Marseille would recognise; Elsa in Monaco cooks it with organic fish from the boats below the terrace.

At home the secret is the broth: rockfish or fish bones simmered with fennel, tomato, garlic, saffron and orange peel, then pressed through a sieve until it is thick and orange. The rouille, a garlic and saffron mayonnaise, goes on the croutons, and the croutons go into the broth.

The home recipe · Serves 4

Ingredients

1.5 kg mixed Mediterranean fish: rascasse, John Dory, monkfish, red mullet
500 g small rockfish or fish bones for the broth
2 onions, 1 fennel bulb, 4 tomatoes, 6 cloves of garlic
A generous pinch of saffron, a strip of orange peel, thyme, bay
100 ml olive oil, 50 ml pastis
Potatoes, a baguette for croutons
Rouille: egg yolk, garlic, saffron, olive oil, cayenne

Method

Sweat the onions, fennel and garlic in olive oil; add the tomatoes, herbs, orange peel and the small fish or bones.
Cover with water, add the saffron and pastis and simmer for 40 minutes, then press everything through a fine sieve.
Bring the broth to a rolling boil, add the potatoes and then the firm fish, then the delicate fish for the last five minutes.
Serve the broth first with croutons and rouille, then the fish and potatoes on a platter.
Argue about it, as Marseille does.