Provencal-Style Fish Stew
Bouillabaisse is a stew or soup featuring assorted seafood that can be served as a communal feast or 2-3-course plated dinner. There are variations in the list of ingredients depending on local seafood and aromatics. The idea is to make an intensely flavored thick stock, then cook high-quality seafood in it, and serve both with boiled potatoes, baguette toasts, and rouille sauce.
Traditionally, French restaurants serve bouillabaisse not plated letting the guests assemble their dishes right before eating — large dishes with cooked seafood, fish stock, rouille, and baguette toasts. Each eater places some seafood and potatoes in a bowl, adds some stock, spreads some rouille on a couple of toasts and places them on top of the stock to soak flavorful essence of bouillabaisse. Other restaurants prefer serving it as a dinner that consists of 3-4 plated dishes featuring different kinds of seafood and making sure all components are distributed evenly. Either way, this fish stew is fantastic!
Sample Seafood Selection: Lobster tails, prawns, monkfish, sole, sea bass, mussels, scallops.
