An exclusive recipe from Ollie Couillaud, chef patron from French brasserie BORD'EAUX on London's Park Lane.
Ingredients
- 175g red mullet,
- 175g monkfish,
- 175g sea Bream
- 175g mussels
- 3 Piment d’Espelettes (a chilli pepper popular in the Basque)
- 16 new potatoes
- 1 pinch of Saffron,
- 1 bulb of fennel
- 10 piquillos peppers
For the soup
- 2 carrots
- 2 onions
- 1 stick of celery
- 4 heads of garlic
- 4 bay leaves
- 2 leeks
- 3 sprigs of thyme
- 3 sprigs of tarragon
- 3 sprigs of rosemary
- 30g star anis
- 30g coriander
- 30g fennel seeds
- ½ tin tomato paste
- 1 tin of peeled tomatoes
- ½ bottle of Pernod
- ½ bottle of Noilly
- ½ bottle of a dry white wine
- 5kg white fish bones
Method
- For the soup
- 1. Fry off all the vegetables and herbs in olive oil, add tomato paste and cook out for 5 minutes. Add the wines and reduce.
- 2. Add the fish bones and peeled tomatoes and then bring to a boil and simmer for about 3 hours.
- 3. Put the soup in a liquidizer and then pour it back into in a pan on a low heat to reduce until the flavour has intensified.
For the fish
- 1. Season the fish with salt and Piment d’Espelette. Boil the new potatoes in water seasoned with saffron. Braise the fennel in a little olive oil.
- 2. Poach the fish in the fish soup, add the cooked new potatoes braised fennel and Piquillos peppers. Serve with aioli on the side.