Seafood bouillabaisse is a French stew where fish and shellfish are simmered with earthy root vegetables for a deeply flavorful seafood stew unlike any other. Distinctive flavors that set French bouillabaisse apart from other seafood soups are fennel, saffron, and orange zest.
WHAT IS BOUILLABAISSE?
If you aren’t familiar with it, you might be wondering, what is bouillabaisse exactly? Much like the Italian cioppino, bouillabaisse soup is a French seafood stew that was first developed in the Provençal region of France, in the city of Marseille.
Bouillabaisse was originally made with a variety of bony rockfish that were readily harvested off the coast of Marseille. These fish would not sell well in markets, but the fishmongers did not want to let them go to waste.
The dish usually includes at least three different kinds of fish and seafood simmered together with vegetables and seasonings in a flavorful broth.
According to Julia Child (in her memoir My Life in France), “the telling flavor of bouillabaisse comes from two things: the Provençal soup base—garlic, onions, tomatoes, olive oil, fennel, saffron, thyme, bay, and usually a bit of dried orange peel—and, of course, the fish—lean (non-oily), firm-fleshed, soft-fleshed, gelatinous, and shellfish.”
