Court Bouillon and Bouillabaisse . . . Fish Soups to Make, Full of Taste

A few years ago Mylan had Bryce and me over for dinner, and she made a wonderful fish soup she learned how to make in New Orleans. It had a flavorful broth with some onion, tomato, and bell pepper which surrounded lovely fillets of red snapper her husband, Garnet, had caught on a fishing trip in the Gulf. I was thinking about it the other night; I bought some nice fish, and got out my French cookbook and turned to fish soups.

Bryce asked me what I was making for dinner, and I said, “ I was thinking about making bouillabaisse.”

“Huh,” he mumbled. “Isn’t that something from Bugs Bunny ? Or am I thinking of hasenpfeffer?”

I giggled as Bryce banged on the counter repeating, “I want my has-en-pfeffer! I want my has-en-pfeffer!”

I said, “Bugs may have served Bouillabaisse, as well. He introduced us, after all, to the Barber of Seville and The Valkyrie.” I smirked as I pulled out a wrinkled Piggly Wiggly bag from the pantry and dumped out a half dozen plump, ripe red bell peppers plus a couple of cayennes.

“Those look nice,” Bryce commented. “You find those at Piggly Wiggly?”

“No, believe it or not they came out of Georgette’s garden. The fact that it’s January never stops her.”

Bryce rolled his eyes. “That crazy woman can do anything she sets her mind to, so it doesn’t surprise me at all. What’s she do? She got her tribe of half-wild hooligan boys to sit out there on cold nights and hold torches? Or better yet, does she have that little varmint running on a treadmill to power a heat blower?”

I laughed. “I don’t think she could train Fang to do anything like that!” I tried to imagine her ferret on an exercise apparatus. “Actually, I think she invented some retractable tent she puts up at night, and no kidding, she does have the boys go out and stoke a fire that is attached to some contraption that blows warm air in there.”

“Figures!” Bryce shook his head smiling.

Bryce, who is a lawyer and the mayor of Gooseberry, has been asked by Georgette on numerous occasions to intercede for her to the county commissioner to allow her to do such things as knock down a tree on public property because it housed birds that she swore taunted her prize milk cow and caused it to quit producing or to get a permit to use dynamite to clear her backyard of fire ants (she did not get that one granted, so she just doused it with gasoline and set it on fire), and one time she asked Bryce to get her out of trouble for “stealing” a bulldozer some workers had left on the side of the road while on a lunch break. In her defense, she really did “ask permission” to borrow it from the driver and he just shrugged and said it was okay because he didn’t think she could manage to drive it. She just needed it to clear some shrubs in her side yard for about an hour, and she managed to return it unscathed, but the driver reported it stolen just so he wouldn’t get in trouble with his boss. Bryce got her out of that one, but he is still trying to come up with a way for her to repay him.

I read the recipe for bouillabaisse and shook my head. “This just doesn’t sound like what Mylan made. I don’t have multiple kinds of fish; I only bought some sheepshead. Wait! Maybe she I’ve got this confused. Did she cook court bouillon?”

“You got me. Why don’t you check out that fancy French cook book of yours and find out,” Bryce always poked fun at me a little when I tried to cook something fancy. His favorite thing in the world was fried chicken and his mother’s buttermilk biscuits.

I flipped to the index and found court bouillon. “This doesn’t look right either. I remember it had tomatoes, bell pepper, and onion in it, and it didn’t have carrots, for sure. I’m calling Mylan.”

After a brief conversation with Mylan we figured it out. It was a different version of court bouillon that she had made. Her version used a light a roux and tomatoes and was topped with lemons. This differed from the “classic” court bouillon which from my brief look at the recipes seemed to simply be a vegetable broth.

What I wound up making was my own version of a fish soup which borrowed from the bouillabaisse, but it only used one type of fish. I’d like to try it again with some mussels. My favorite part of it was something called a rouille (pronounced rue-wee), which I used one of the beautiful red bell peppers and a cayenne to make. It was a paste with the peppers and garlic and some French bread and olive oil. Half of it was used to thicken the soup, and the rest was used to spread on slices of French bread. Delicious! I’ve included my Marveen version of bouillabaisse below.

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*Marveen is a fictional character. She and her friends and family live in Gooseberry , Georgia.

The history of rouille seems tied to bouillabaisse, and the first printed recipe for bouillabaisse with rouille appeared in the late 18^th century. Bouillabaisse is believed to have originated in Marseilles, France. Some food historians believe that ancient Phoceans (not to be confused with Phoenicia, Phocaea was an ancient Ionian Greek city which is now modern day Foca, Turkey) brought the recipe to the port of Marseilles in 600 B.C., and that it resembles a Greek fish soup called kakavia. Others believe it is more likely an adaptation of an Italian seafood soup. An interesting spin on mythology told in Marseilles surrounds the soup: Venus served bouillabaisse to her husband Vulcan to put him to sleep so she could go out with Mars.

There are different ideas about the origin of the word, bouillabaisse. There is a term bouilhe-baisso which is defined as a fisherman’s method of cooking fish in sea water. The most likely origin is bouillon abaissé means “broth lowered” or reduced soup. There are many different versions of the soup, but it has several key ingredients and methods of cooking that make it authentic. It usually contains fennel, tomato, onion, garlic, and saffron, and the broth is vigorously boiled with a liberal amount of olive oil to create a rich emulsion. The fish and any types of shellfish are poached in the broth, but the classic method of serving actually is to have the broth by itself first with bread and rouille, and the fish is served separately (rouille may also accompany the fish).

Purists believe that the types of fish that may be used matter greatly. In Marseilles, a number of restaurants actually got together and created a charter to protect the integrity of the dish by listing the acceptable ingredients, including types of fish that may be used, and the method it must be served. It states that no less than four different varieties of fish on the list must be used.

Most towns throughout Italy, France and the Mediterranean have their own versions of fish soups. Other similar soups include ttoro, a Basque dish with shrimp, clams, and mussels; bourride is almost identical to bouillabaisse, but usually is thickened with egg yolks that are made into an aioli (emulsified, like mayonnaise, with oil, garlic, and seasoning); cioppino is an Italian-American version developed by fishermen in San Francisco in the late 1800’s which is full of different types of fish and shellfish, seasoned with tomato, garlic, fennel, and wine; brodetto, which is an Italian for “little broth”, contains both fish and shellfish and usually herbs, vinegar, wine, and is served over rustic peasant bread; brodet is a Croatian fish soup also containing a combination of fish which is floured and sautéed in olive oil, and then a broth of tomato and vinegar and bay leaves, and other seasoning are added to one pot and simmered, but not stirred, and finally, it is often served with polenta.

The difference between court bouillon (pronounced “kur-bu-yon”) and these other types of fish soups is that court bouillon doesn’t contain seafood in the broth. The word literally means “short broth” because it takes much less time to cook than meat broths. Court bouillon is simply a vegetable bouillon, and anything may be cooked in it, not just fish.

Fish cooked in court bouillon is usually called “ à la nage,” which means cooking something in vegetable broth with the vegetables still in it. This was definitely the dish Mylan made. I remember bits of bell pepper, onion, and tomato in the broth around the soup.

Literally, à la nage means while swimming. Cooking, à la nage has existed in France for centuries, although the term is relatively new. Something cooked in this manner may use simple court bouillon or it can be a broth that has been reduced and enriched with butter or enhanced with vinegar. When fish is poached in court bouillon with vinegar, it’s often called au bleu because it turns certain types of very fresh fish blue when their slimy coating touches the acid of the vinegar. In all cases, if the vegetables are left in the broth, it’s à la nage ; (all the better if veggies are julienned or cut into attractive shapes); otherwise, it’s simpl y court bouillon.

The classic French cookbook I consulted contained a court bouillon which didn’t resemble Mylan’s dish much at all. It called for leeks, carrots, celery, a turnip, bouquet garni (usually, a tied-together bundle of bay, parsley and thyme), and white wine. It was boiled gently in water to create a broth and then strained. I imagined this simple broth to poach a fish, and thought, “that sounds bland.” (Sorry, purists, but I just like a little more substance).

Where was Mylan’s New Orleans dish? I had become intrigued how the tantalizing bouillabaisse fused into the simple court bouillon and became the dish Mylan had served. I finally found an explanation in a fascinating article on an Emeril cooking blog called The Tales of Courtbouillon by Mary Tutwiler. Specifically, she wanted to know how the tomato got into the fish soup. Good question!

Her answer, in short, is that people adapt to their resources. People didn’t have saffron, but bay leaves were abundant, as were tomatoes. She claims she searched many classic Louisiana books, but she could never find a “leap” from the simple broth to the spicy, complex, roux-based, tomato infused stew. She added one more fact I didn’t realize after reading all the French cookbooks. People in Louisiana combined it into one word: courtbouillon (and usually drop the “r” so it sounds like “koo-bu-yon”). Oh, and that’s right! Mylan served it over rice.

I was happy to find I wasn’t the only one who was confused. I suppose as in most things with cuisine, the food people eat is transformed by a combination of what they already know and what they’ve got on hand. Later in history, people may try to recreate this and insist that the exact same ingredients must be used. I say, “Viva la difference!” Take the things you learn from the classics of cooking – the basics – and look around at what you have locally at hand that’s economical and of good quality. You may be surprised with what you may invent! I liked my version of “Marveen Bouillabaisse”, and “Mylan’s Courtbouillon” is just fantastic, too. Try your own version soon!

1 quart of fish or shellfish broth (take fish bones or shells and heads of shrimp and combine with an onion, garlic, thyme, bay, and black peppercorns, and simmer for about half an hour and strain).

1 pound of good firm, fresh salt water fish

¼ cup olive oil

½ onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, chopped

1 cup quality white wine

1 can chopped tomatoes

2 bay leaves

½ teaspoon saffron threads

½ teaspoon paprika

Black pepper to taste

Sea salt to taste

1 TBS chopped fresh parsley

½ teaspoon chopped tarragon

4 slice of stale French bread

1 small or ½ large red bell pepper

1 cayenne pepper

2 cloves garlic

1 teaspoon fennel seed powder

1 TBS tomato paste

1 TBS anchovy paste

¼ cup olive oil

Sea salt to taste

Sautee onion and garlic (add some fresh fennel root if you have it) in olive oil over medium heat until tender. Add wine and reduce until only about a tablespoon remains. Add can of tomatoes and fish stock. Add bay leaves and boil until reduced by nearly half. Put saffron threads in ¼ cup of water and let infuse; water will turn a golden color.

Meanwhile, make the rouille. This is most easily made in a food processor. Put bread into the processor and break up well. Add the next six ingredients (all except oil) and puree into a paste. Gradually stream in the olive oil until it makes a nice spreadable paste. Taste for salt, as you’ll be using some of this directly on bread.

Add the saffron and herbs to the soup. If you like, this is a good time to add a splash of Pernod (a French anise liqueur) or sherry. Add half the rouille and stir over medium heat 2 minutes. (This should thicken the soup and give it more flavor). Taste the soup at this point for salt and pepper. Add the fish, cut into pieces that are about the size of two bites and poach gently for five to eight minutes. Serve with French bread and remaining rouille. A good addition would be shrimp and/or mussels.

¼ cup flour

¼ cup vegetable oil

1 onion, chopped

1 red bell pepper, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 can chopped tomatoes

1 cup white wine

2 cups fish stock (or water, but the stock will taste richer)

2 bay leaves

1 lemon, sliced

2 sprigs thyme

4 whole allspice

2 fillets of red fish, cut into 2-inch slices

Sea salt to taste

Cayenne pepper to taste

Make a chocolate colored roux with the flour and oil over high heat, stirring constantly. Add chopped onion, pepper, and garlic. Stir over medium heat until vegetables are tender. Add the wine and tomatoes and stir until smooth. Gradually add fish stock or water until the soup contains no lumps of roux. Add bay leave, half the sliced lemon, thyme, and allspice. Simmer soup on low heat for half an hour. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Add fish and poach for eight to ten minutes. Serve over rice with slices of lemon.