A dimly remembered, gorgeous fish soup I ate in Honfleur, filtered through the instinct of Scottish dishes that speak of a far aulder alliance. If the history is simply too challenging for you, stick with the sumptuous flavours.
Recently I wanted to reconstruct the most wonderful fish soup-meal I experienced in Normandy many years ago. Bluntly, I couldn't remember it clearly. So this is my version with bits lifted from Scottish cooking. If you know anything about the late 13th century, you'll know why this makes sense.
This recipe is for 2 to 3 diners. Open those calculator apps if you want to cook it for a larger group of of dining buddies.
The cooking time takes a bit over 30 min, but the preparation doesn't. This is ultimately a very easy meal to prepare.
Shopping list
1 large leek; finely sliced
3 cloves of garlic; crushed or finely grated
Unsalted butter (NOT olive oil, this is French cooking!); about 2.5 tbspns
1 cup good fish or vegetable stock— the original French recipe favours fish stock but I prefer veggie stock. Your call.
Swede, about half a standard-size fresh swede i.e. roughly the same volume as 2 medium potatoes; peeled and cubed in a rough, "rustic" manner
Approx. 300g of any "firm" fish. I'm mixing cod, salmon and smoked haddock (not very French) but you can use any combination to the same rough quantity, including seafood. Cut the raw fish into large chunks and make sure it is thoroughly washed and drained
A large clasp of parsley, finely chopped. Ideally this should be fresh flat leaf parsley but any fresh parsley actually works perfectly well
A bay leaf
Bouquet garni; 1 traditional bouquet or a single "bag" version
4 tbspns Worcestershire sauce
50 to 70ml single cream
A little celery salt
½ glass dry white wine
Black pepper to flavour
Cooking method
Unlike some of the other fish meal-soups I cook, this is a relative easy and straightforward recipe. Also, unless you decide otherwise, it is a soup that is fairly light in colour.
The soup base...
In a saucepan with a lid, melt the majority of the butter on a high heat and add the the garlic, first allowing it to "bubble" in the boiling butter
To this, add the leek within one or two minutes of the garlic "bubbling". Allow the sliced leek to soften and sweat. NB: being green, the leek is unlikely to brown easily unless you're doing something wrong
Leek is a "greedy" vegetable, likely to absorb much of the butter. Add about half a tbspn and a generous amount of cracked pepper at the same time as adding the sliced celery and celery salt. Stir, cover and allow the celery to soften, stirring occasionally
Throw in half a glass of white wine and allow it to burn off, turning up the heat to speed the process
Pour in approx. 1 cup of hot vegetable (or fish) stock and bring the mix to the boil
Add the swede, adding enough hot water from the kettle to ensure all ingredients are comfortably covered. Add the bay leaf and the bouquet garni to the boiling the liquid
Allow to boil vigorously for 5 to 7 mins. Then, cover, reduce the temperature substantially and allow to simmer for at least 40 mins, ideally for an hour or more
After the soup base has been simmering for 20 min, add the Worcestershire sauce and stir in
The final stretch...
This is a one-pot dish. It involves no pre-cooking of the fish. When the soup base has been cooking for about 30 to 40 min, and when the swede is succulent and soft and you can taste that the flavours have blended, gently add the raw fish to the simmering soup and stir in gently using a wooden spoon or spatula. Cover and allow to simmer for about 3 min before stirring again
Add the majority of the chopped parsley and about 70% of the single cream and some additional freshly ground black pepper. Stir, cover and allow to simmer for a few minutes longer. Then turn off the heat and allow the dish to settle while still covered
Plate, garnish with a dab of fresh cream and chopped raw parsley and serve with rustic bread and proper butter. Don't worry about the single cream slightly separating if serving as a hearty meal-soup
Accompaniments
Of course, this dish can also make an excellent starter soup course to a larger meal. In which case, blend the soup base ingredients in-pot using a handheld blender before adding the fish. And add no cream except as garnish at the plating stage.
Variations
Vegetarian - use vegetable stock instead of fish and add cubes of smoked tofu in exactly the same manner as the fish, but allowing for a longer cooking time
Pairings Another of those dishes that I have only ever seen as "workaday", I've mostly had it with common-or-garden dry white plonk of the non-memorable variety. Saying that, revisiting it tonight with a Terre di Vita Organic Pinot Grigio Terre Siciliane, I'm getting a sense of where this could go in more skilled hands. Karel!
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