Fish Soup of Marseille, a recipe from the French Mediterranean

coast with all the flavors from Provence combined in this rich,

tasty, flavorful, delicate fish soup.

To make the fish soup of Marseille you will need: thyme,

grated Gruyere cheese, rosemary, olive oil, pepper, garlic,

salt, cayenne pepper, orange, bay leaves, saffron,

and the zest of the orange.

Then a mirepoix of carrot, onion, celery and fennel,

tomato puree, tomato paste, white wine and Pernod or pastis,

this is optional, fish bones and bread.

Marseille is on the French coast of the Mediterranean Sea.

And when people want to make the soup,

they buy what we call fish for soup, so that includes various

species of small fish, usually that size,

and all kinds of colors.

And the particularity for the soup is that you just give a rinse

to the fish, but you don't clean the inside.

You leave everything in there.

So when you process the soup through the vegetable mill,

you have some flesh, which gives some consistency to the soup.

Unless you live by the Mediterranean Sea,

you won't find those fish.

So today I'm using red snapper because the particularity

of the soup for those species are that they are species that live

near the rock, near the shore.

I like to use the red snapper because it's very flavorful.

There's a lot of bones.

And today I'm also using the flesh of the snapper.

You may use only the bones including the head without the eyes.

And in order to have a little bit of flesh,

to have some kind of consistency, you may add something else,

like sole cut in pieces or something else.

So really speak with your fishmonger in order to decide what you

should buy to make beautiful fish soup of Marseille.

Let's start our soup.

Heat a pot.

Add the olive oil.

Add the fish balls that I have washed very well for about 20

minutes until the water is totally clear.

I have removed all the blood.

And you have to make sure you drain them.

Here I have a three-pound snapper and I asked the fishmonger

to cut it into pieces for me.

Cook the fish bones on medium heat for about five minutes,

stirring from time to time.

Add the wine and cook for another five minutes.

Cut the orange in quarters. [cutting sounds]

Great. Stir. [stirring sounds]

Smells great. Smells fishy.

Now let's add the aromatic garnish.

Add the small mirepoix of onion, celery, carrot and fennel.

So here I have one onion, one branch of celery,

one medium carrot, and half a fennel bulb.

Add the orange, so squeeze, just squeeze the juice.

And leave half of the orange, like two-quarters in the soup.

Add the bay leaves, the thyme and the rosemary, the orange zest,

the head of garlic cut in half, the saffron, the cayenne pepper,

the tomato paste, so about half of the can, and the tomato

puree. And mix well. [mixing sounds]

Rinse the bowl of the tomato puree

in order to not waste anything.

Give it a stir.

And add the cold water, about two quarts.

Mix well.

Bring the soup to a boil.

And simmer for a good two hours.

Add the Pernod or Ricard.

Although this is optional, it's something I strongly recommend

as it will add a nice beautiful flavor of licorice to the soup.

Great.

Turn the soup on high heat in order to bring it to a boil.

Then we will reduce the heat to a medium low heat and we'll

simmer the soup for about a good two hours.

The soup is boiling.

Turn it down to a medium low heat in order to let it simmer

and skim the foam part. So using a skimmer.

Give it a stir and let it cook.

The soup has been simmering for an hour now.

It is time to remove the fat that is floating on the top.

So the fat comes from the olive oil, but also from the fish.

Great.

Give it a stir to make sure that nothing sticks to the bottom

of the pot and let it simmer for an extra hour.

Our soup has been simmering for a good two hours now,

so let's taste it and rectify the seasoning.

Nice. A little bit more salt.

I prefer to put the seasoning at the end for that soup

because it did reduce by half almost, so quite a bit.

Pepper.

And I'm going to add a little bit of cayenne pepper.

Just a little bit more.

Give it a stir.

Taste again. Beautiful.

Let's pass the soup through the food mill.

This is the hard part now.

So you want to pass everything through the sieve.

Of course the bones won't pass through the sieve,

only all the vegetables, the flavor, the flesh will go through

the sieve making the soup a little bit thicker.

Push the ingredients down in order to present them

to the blade here.

Pass or squeeze or press on the ingredients here

until it is totally dry.

This is the most important step of the soup

because we are extracting all the flavors.

Clean under.

And discard the dry ingredients here.

Done. Wow, what a workout, about ten minutes of mixing.

I'm going to degrease a little bit my soup here.

I still have a little bit of fat on the side here.

So my fish here and my bones are very dry.

So you will have to discard that of course.

But you shouldn't see any liquid.

It should be totally dry.

Okay, because all the flavors now are here.

Let's boil the soup.

Prepare the crouton and serve the soup.

Slice the bread into thin slices.

About the size of my finger, so quarter-inch slices.

Usually we do three slices per person.

Place the slices on a cookie sheet or cookie tray

and broil it to have the bread golden brown.

Because my broiler is on high, keep an eye on your bread

because it will go quite fast.

So the bread is ready.

Turn the slices. And brown the other side.

Perfect.

Our soup is boiling.

It's time for us to serve it.

Have the gruyere, rouille and croutons

served separately on the side.

And each guest will take what he wants and mix it into the soup.

And the crouton usually we take a little bit of rouille either

you put them in the soup or you put a little bit of rouille

and spread it on the crouton and eat it like that

while you eat your soup. It's really up to you.

Now, serve the soup in a pre-heated soup bowl.

The flavors are amazing.

I feel like I'm in Provence having this soup in Marseille.

Nice soup of course.

Fish soup of Marseille. Bon Appetit.