I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. The weather in San Francisco Bay Area for the past week had been cloudy, rainy, and cold. It’s fairly unusual that we get any rain at all in June and I can’t wait nice warm summer to arrive. I just want to thank everyone for your kind messages the past week about our cold, and I can finally say my kids and I are better! It took us forever to recover from this bug.
I’m sorry if I disappoint you today if you stopped by to find a Japanese recipe. As I mentioned before, from time to time I share non-Japanese recipes though the majority of the food I prepare is Japanese. If my family liked what I cooked, then the recipe will be added to Just One Cookbook (our family recipe collection) for my future reference. I promise I will post a traditional Japanese food on Wednesday! The recipe I am sharing today is bouillabaisse. It’s not difficult to make but the key to the great flavor is to get good seafood. I love the taste of warm tomato-based broth infused with saffron, mixed in really good seafood and a glass of white wine and some bread (my mouth is already watering).
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Bouillabaisse (French Seafood Stew)
Ingredients
- ½ cup dry sherry
- ½ tsp saffron
- 3 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
- 6 cloves garlic (minced)
- 1 onion (diced)
- 1 shallots (minced)
- 1 cup fennel bulb (thinly sliced)
- 1 stalk celery (minced)
- 1 carrot (diced)
- 1 lb white fish (I used Alaskan true cod, feel free to substitute with halibut or ocean trout; cut into bite sizes)
- 2.5 lb seafood mix (your choice of shrimp, clams or mussels, lobsters, scallops, crab meat, squid, etc, defrosted in the fridge for a few hours, if frozen)
- 1 jar oyster (10 oz, 283 g)
- 1 can diced tomatoes (28 oz, 794 g with juice)
- 2 cups clam juice
Seasonings:
- 1 ½ Tbsp tomato paste
- 2 tsp kosher/sea salt (I use Diamond Crystal; use half for table salt)
- 1 tsp basil (or minced 1 fresh basil leaf)
- 2 Tbsp parsley (fresh)
- freshly ground black pepper
For Garnish
- parsley (chopped)
- crushed red peppers (red pepper flakes) (optional)
Instructions
- Gather all the ingredients.
- In a small bowl, combine saffron and sherry and set aside.
- Cut vegetables and fish into bite-size pieces.
- Prepare and clean seafood as necessary. Some of the Costco sells a great frozen seafood medley pack and we used it today. It saves quite a bit time not having to clean and cut the seafood.
- In a large pot (I use a big Le Creuset pot), heat olive oil on medium heat. Add garlic and all the chopped vegetables (onion, shallots, a fennel bulb, a celery stalk, and carrot) and sauté on low heat until lightly golden brown, about 20 minutes.
- Add Seasonings and mix well.
- Add all the liquids: a can of tomatoes with juice, clam juice, the juice from jar of oyster, and the saffron infused sherry. Bring it to just a boil and lower heat and simmer 15 minutes.
- Add all the seafood. When the soup starts to boil, skim off the scum and foam from the soup, and simmer for 15 minutes. Skimming is very important to have a good clear soup with a refined taste.
- Top with garnishes and serve immediately with bread.
To Store
- You can keep the leftovers in an airtight container or in the pot and store in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.
Notes
Hi. I was just wondering how long it took you to defrost the seafood medley? or did you cook it from frozen? I’ve had this seafood medley in the freezer for a couple of months not sure of what to make. and this looks amazing and delicious!
Hi Sarah! Defrost the seafood in the fridge for a few hours. We really love this and have been making for many times. Hope you enjoy this as well!
Hi Nami! Thank you so much for getting back to me. Im eating it as i type. It is absolutely delicious!! 🙂 thank you for sharing this wonderful recipe. and I must say I love the pictures. keep up the tasty recipes. 🙂
Hi Sarah! I’m so happy you liked this recipe. I have been making this so many times and we still enjoy it every time! It is pretty easy to prepare and totally worth the time. Thank you for your feedback! 🙂
Hi Nami
I found your Bouillabaisse recipe during a Google search. What a magnificent taste! Such depth and complexity of flavour. I hope you won’t be appalled that last night my partner and I cooked an eggplant and zucchini “lasagne” using the basics from this recipe, substituting vegetable stock (using only half the suggested water) for the clam juice, etc. It worked wonderfully.
Thanks
Hi Clinton! I’m so happy you found my site! That is so cool that you two made lasagne out of this recipe! I love eggplant and zucchini… must be so delicious! Glad to hear you enjoyed it. Thanks for your feedback! 🙂
Given the delicate nature of French cuisine and the always positive nature of descriptive contructive narrative when cooking I was extremely surprised to see the word “scum” used to describe something that is part of the process of cooking. Possibly choose a word that isn’t assoicaited with the toilet or a diseased swamp ?
Thanks for the recipe 😉
Hi Steve! Thanks for your feedback. Initially when I tried to translate from Japanese word “aku (灰汁)”, I did some research and the expression “skimming the fat and scum” was used in many recipes; therefore I’ve been using that. If you have a better word suggestion, I’d love to know. Fat and scum are different things, and I specifically want to mention the unnecessary things that float on the soup/broth. Thanks!
I guess you could say skim the “impurities”. But honestly, the word scum is used in cooking often and I didn’t think about toilet or waste products.
Hi Foo,
Thank you! We appreciate your input!
Looks great, will be making this for Valentines Day dinner! Thank you!
Hi Tania! Hope you enjoy! It’s one of our favorite stews! 🙂
I had bouillabaisse for the first time recently – in a more sophisticated restaurant than is usual for me. It was cock full of seafood, not all of which were bite size. I asked pardon of my companion as I needed to use my fingers. When the waiter came by, I mentioned my dilemma, he told me to do what I had to. I confess I licked my fingers – but not the bowl!
Hi MPaula! Aw, you’re very proper. 🙂 Usually, Bouillabaisse has clams and mussels and you have to remove the shell. Some has crab legs etc. I hope your first bouillabaisse experience was a good one! 🙂
Clearly no one else here has uses this recipe just comment on how nice it looks. Step 4 add all vegatbles…..step 6 add tomatoes??? Cool, too late. You should write add all vegatbles except tomatoes. Annoying, but too late to fix, now simmering tomatoes with garlic and can’t brown anything
Hi Anthony! I apologize that the recipe wasn’t clear. I didn’t mean “all the vegetables” included a canned tomatoes. I edited the recipe, and hopefully it’s clear now. I remembered that print out copy of my recipe doesn’t have the step by step images. Really sorry about that.
You need a print button. I just printed twenty pages of comments. The soup is wonderful though.
Hi Susan! Oh I’m sorry you had to print 20 pages! Do you see “PRINT” button inside the recipe card? If you click on it, there will be a printer-friendly recipe pop up, and you can click print. 🙂
I just made this for a group of friends. Absolutely dank.
Had a lovely evening.
Hi Simon!
We are so happy to hear you enjoyed this stew with your friends!😊
Thank you very much for trying this recipe and for your kind feedback!