French fish soup is a deeply flavorful dish that is traditionally served with rounds of toast, grated cheese and rouille, a garlic mayonnaise flavored with saffron and cayenne. Unlike other fish soups, this one comes to the table totally smooth, without any pieces of fish. In the classic version, fresh fish are cooked, bones and all, with veggies and herbs, and the soup is passed through a sieve. One can simplify by using fish fillets, fresh or frozen.
Soupe de poisson / French fish soup
This soup is served across France in numerous iterations, but the basic recipe follows the same lines. Onion, garlic, leek, finocchio and tomatoes are sautéed to tenderness in olive oil; water, herbs and seasonings are added to make a broth; the fish are simmered in the broth; and the soup is then blended and strained.
French fish soup may be made with many types of fish. Julia Child’s recipe lists 11 varieties, including cod, perch, mullet, sea bass and turbot (although it’s kind of shame to use the higher priced varieties in a soup). My favorite Provençal cookbook simply says to use rockfish, which are cheap and abundant in the Mediterranean but not necessarily available elsewhere. If you’d like to make fish soup and you’re not in southern France, you can use any local variety of fish as long as it’s lean (non-oily).
In the soup shown in the photo above, I used merlan (hake) and vive (weever) on the advice of my local fishmonger. I asked him to gut the fish and remove the heads and tails, although these are sometimes included in the broth. My plan was to cook the soup and then purée it in the blender — but, dear reader, that didn’t work. When I tasted the purée, it was full of tiny pieces of fishbone. So I strained it through a sieve, as most French recipes advise. Success. No bones, and a flavor that I can only describe as sublime.
The color of French fish soup can vary from salmon pink to rusty red, most likely a result of the type and amount of tomatoes used. Mine came out pink, probably because it’s autumn and fresh tomatoes are less red and ripe than in mid-summer. The soup may also be made with tinned tomatoes.
French fish soup is not to be confused with bouillabaisse, the fabulous dish from Marseille, in which a platter of fish and shellfish is brought to the table to be served after the soup. I’ve been planning to post that recipe for a while, the problem being that it is hard to produce a bona fide bouillabaisse if one doesn’t live within range of the Mediterranean. But maybe one of these days…
As for the regional variations, in southern France it’s traditional to include a piece of dried orange rind in the broth. Sometimes saffron and/or cayenne are added as well. In Normandy and Brittany, celery might be substituted for the finocchio, and carrots may be included. But the tradition of serving the soup with croûtons (toasted bread rounds), rouille and grated cheese is followed throughout the country.
I don’t make French fish soup very often, both because it’s a bit of a production and because it’s available here in bottles — the quality is quite all right. But I can assure you that the homemade variety is very far superior, and worth the effort.
Happy cooking.
P.S. Just letting you know that I will be posting once every three weeks (instead of once every two weeks) from now until after the holidays. This is because I have a new book coming out in early December! More on that in my next post…
