Passport & Plate - French Fish Soup
France | Thursday, March 13, 2014 | 5 photos
Ingredients
To make a large pot of soup, you'll need 1 or 2 whole fish + whatever heads, frames, and bits that your fishmonger can give you. Good fish to include in the soup are red mullet, bream, and scorpion fish. If you have questions or can't find these varieties, your fishmonger should be able to suggest suitable fish to use. Be sure to ask that they gut the fish for you.
1 lb. of mixed fish
4 carrots
2 potatoes
2 large tomatoes, or one 16 oz. can of crushed tomatoes
1 leek
1 yellow onion
2 cloves of garlic
Salt & Pepper
How to prepare this recipe1. Chop all the vegetables and place in large stock pot or casserole. Cover with water (if using canned tomatoes add them now, with juice) and a dash of salt and pepper. Place on medium heat and bring to a simmer.
2. While waiting for water to a simmer, chop fish into 2-3 inch pieces. Add fish-heads and tails included- into the stock pot. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer. Cover and cook for 45 mins- 1 hour.
3. Remove from heat and use a slotted spoon to extract large pieces of fish bones and heads from the stock. Transfer in batches to a hand mill and mill the soup into a a second stock pot. Once all the stock as been milled, reheat if necessary and serve hot with croutons, rouille, and grated gruyère.
The story behind this recipeCe soir, je fais de la soupe de poisson, I divulge in my awkward American accent to the fishmonger. My statement sets off a ripple of responses, neighbors in line give feedback and others hold back to hear recipes and offer advice. The fishmonger remains silent, turning and inspecting fish, deciding which ones will make the perfect mélange to satisfy my request.
Fish Soup, whose recipe should start with how to shop for it, is the perfect market-sourced meal. The soup works best using a mixture of fish heads, frames, fins, and filets, which any good fishmonger should have lying around. So I start with the fishmonger, who tells me which fish will do and which will definitely not (every fishmonger will tell you something different, all of them will be right). Once the fish guts have been wrapped with care I graciously accept the package and go see Jean-Michel, who brings fresh vegetables to the market from his local family farm. After we exchange smiles and a ça va?, I pick out the essentials for a basic stock; potatoes, carrots, leeks, and onions- all dressed in the dirt they wore that morning, before being pulled from the ground to make the trip to the city.
The fishmonger and farmer are characters that make up my Paris neighborhood, which I've called home for the past eight years. They are sources of the information and advice that forms me, a fledgling madame in a foreign land. Their insight into how to prepare, serve, and savor a dish has as much an effect on what ends up on my dinner table as it does on my overall experience as a curious expat living far from home.
Shopping bag full, I return to my 4th floor walk up and unpack the ingredients in my tiny kitchen. One by one, each item will find its way into my cherry red Le Creuset, where they slowly cook, every minute becoming more and more what they are meant to be; a meal shared with friends, proof that the best recipes come to those who ask and, of course, a perfect Fish Soup.
