French Chef; Bouillabaisse A La Marseillaise; 201; French Chef: Bouillabaisse A La Marseillaise

[WOMAN SPEAKS FRENCH] [WOMAN SPEAKS FRENCH] This is Marseille in full cry. This is where bouillabaisse is still going strong. We're cooking on the French Chef! [THEME MUSIC PLAYS] [THEME MUSIC CONTINUES] The French Chef is made possible by a grant from the Polaroid Corporation. [THEME MUSIC CONTINUES] Welcome to the French Chef. I'm Julia Child. Bouillabaisse is a - a French fish chowder and it originated on the Mediterranean in Provence and it has those typical French Provencal ingredients of onion, and leeks, and tomatoes

and olive oil, and herbs, and fish. It's a loud, colorful, authoritative flavorful brew, just like the Marseille - Marseillais themselves. And it's made from a great collection of - of fish that are very, very, very fresh and they come in to Marseille every day, in the early morning. This is the old port, and this is where the fish come in. And these are the little boats that you see coming in the harbor in the early morning. They're called chalut - C-H-A-L-U-T. run them are called les Chalutais and they have a separate market where their fish are sold. That's probably one of their wives. Unload the fish right on the old port itself. It's in a very modern city and with modern facilities in the great

big new port and then right next to the new port and coexisting with it is a port where the fish are. I always feel that part of Marseille itself is cooked right into the bouillabaisse, you can somehow just taste the flavor and the color and the excitement of that old port. And when you eat it there in one of those little open restaurants and you're watching the boats coming in and out you really know you're having the real thing it's called Bouillabaisse Marseillaise yes but if you're making it elsewhere as as we are making it here it's called Bouillabaisse a la Marseillaise, which means

in other words if you're there it's Bouillabaisse Marseillaise and if you're here it's a la Marseillaise. The bouillabaisse starts out with all with the very typical Marseille flavors of the onions and the leeks and if you don't have leeks which are these wonderful things you can use onions and we have. It starts out with olive oil, a good fruity olive oil. About half a cup into a great big kettle and then in go two cups of sliced onions and two cups of sliced leeks. Or if you don't have leaks two more cups of onions. And then you cover the pot and let's and let the onions and leeks cook slowly together for about five minutes because cooking them allows their full flavor to escape into the broth. And then after that you have

six cups of fresh tomatoes. And if you don't have fresh tomatoes which are always the best, but naturally you can't get them in season. Use three cups of fresh tomatoes and then about one cup one cup of tomato puree. And that but the just having the fresh...having the fresh...gives you a lot more flavor but the combination is good, too. And then we have garlic. And you want a lot of garlic so it's about four or five cloves chopped up and you don't even need to peel them. And then we have herbs you can use fresh basil, if you have it but otherwise you want to use some parsley and fennel we'd like about six or eight parsley sprigs and half a teaspoon of thyme. Of course if you're living down in the Mediterranean most of these would be fresh. And

then fennel is very important, because that gives a particularly Marseille flavor-a Mediterranean flavor. a bay leaf, and this should be an imported bay leaf, if possible. And then a piece of dried orange peel or some dried orange and then, very important, is saffron and these are called saffron threads, and they're made...They come they're the...stigma of the little bulb that looks as if that's part of the iris... of the iris family, and you just want to use a little bi- bit two big pinches. It's a very... two or three big pinches... it's a very very strong herb and if you put in too much, it's going to taste medicinal. So what we have in there, we have two cups of onions and two cups of leeks or four of onions. And now, if you have ve-

Very very fresh fish you can just put in plain water because you're gonna to flavor the rest of the stuff with fish trimmings. And I want about two and a half quarts of water here. And that's to come up rapid boil and one tablespoon of salt. and that's going to and that will then and then that will then be completed with fish trimmings but if you have no fresh fish you can still very well indeed because you can use bottled or canned clam juice and in that case you'd use 1 quart of clam juice and 1-1/2 quarts of water and no salt because you have the salt in your clam juice. And then all of this is to cook at a fairly rapid boil because what you want to do is to have all of the olive oil and all of the flavors just work right into the soup so you don't need to cover it, you could cover it first until it comes up to the boi- boil so things will go a little more rapidly than other words about 40

minutes in all after you after you get your Fish ?_____? in and if you don't of course if you don't how fresh you still cook it for 40 minutes. But we have fresh fish for a bouillabaisse and we have a beautiful striped bass and, well this is great fun to do if you're in Marseille, get up at dawn and go down to the ?_____? fish market where you're, that's on the old port and you can find it very easily it's on the left hand side of the park opposite the ?____? and you can hear it and see it. And this is called the ?____? au poisson and the fish sellers are wonderful women which are called Which are fishwives, the pride and peculiar pride of Marseille seille the Marseille fish wives and fish sellers. [sound of raucous fish wives]

[sounds of fish wives continues] Looks. A little bit less.[voices of fish wives continues] What.[voices of fish wives with customer continues] Oui. See. We do.[voices of fish wives with customer continues] See. Is a.[voices of fish wives with customer continues] Fresh. Load.[voices of fish wives with customer continues] Of fresh. For us.[voices of fish wives with customer continues]

This. Week.[voices of fish wives with customer continues] Plus. I thought it was so funny when I said, that, "That's rigor mortis" and he said said, "No, it's mackerel." Well, this isn't the rigor mortis, either. This is a great big pollack and this is a fish you're going to see a lot more. Oh because it it's a fine ocean fish. It's the kind of fish that you will find all over the country more and more because, unfortunately, haddock and cod are getting scarcer. Now what we're going to do is to them to give you some of the ideal. Ideally, you would have six or eight varieties of fish and you have you'd have if you have something like a hacke(?) and you want them to be hacke (?) and, obviously 6 or 8 varieties and you want them to smell extremely fresh. Whether they're fresh or frozen, smell 'em. And it really

literally does have a really fresh, sweet smell and that's terribly important something like a bouillabaisse and frozen fish can be can be excellent, too if they're properly taken care of and these can be... you can have either salt water fish or freshwater fish and you don't want oily fish It should be lean fish, in other words, no mackerel and no tuna fish. And if you're a fisherman, over here you want to find this little baby called a sculpin and the sculpin is a cousin of the Mediterranean ?____? which is one of the most important fish that they use in Marseille for the the bouillabaisse. And You can have shellfish, also. You can have their scallops which are just fine, or you can have lobster -- I've been keeping this one in the shade because he's nice and alive and make sure that he clearly does that [lobster chirping sound]. If you could see he's got to be really live and what you want also

is a variety of fish, you want some flimsy fish like flounder and then you want some firm-fleshed fish like hal- halibut. And the halibut is also gelatinous and some of the other fi- fish are gelatinous and that is what you very much need because that gives quality and body to the soup and this is why this variety is often good because the flimsy fish ?white cup? while the soup was boiling and the firm flesh fish like the halibut stay together and also give another quality. These are ideal conditions but not every one's always going to have them and it doesn't make really any difference because you have such a wonderful flavor just in the that onions and garlic and everything that's cooking that you produce. So here's a pollack filling and you can use whole ?following? bouillabaisse just out of pollack and if you want you can add that Mediterranean sauce which you find in most cook books called a rouille --

r-o-u-i-l-l-e -- which will thicken your sauce a little bit but I think I thought it would be fun for you to see the ideal conditions. So if you have a bass there's a great big fresh striper in this piece you have a trout, too, you just take a big knife and you just cut it up, you've cleaned it and you've taken out the gills and I'll take off this. Take off that tail piece, there. But if you're doing it ?I must say yes.? You don't take the bones out and you don't take the skin off, either. Remember this is a peasant soup. That's what someone thought about it. It also makes it a very easy soup to do so there you would have that little group of striped bass there. And then you still have the head. Which you can use for your fish stock as you can see the gills have been taken out and it's and it's all been washed and cleaned so

save anything like that for the fish stock. And then when you cut it up the idea is when you, as you you see when you serve it, that you want to have nice big pieces and now if you have a halibut steak there, you just take it an- cut it in about four serving pieces. You can take the skin off or leave it on I always leave it though. I'll leave some of it on and take some of it off. That was a messy piece of work. There, this will now keep ?on that.? But you just cut it in half and I really was a ?phone? when we were living in Norway I did. I did your best using halibut but it was extremely good just the halibut and cod. And now if you're going to use scallops, sea scallops that's not what they use very much in France but they're in inex- reasonably priced here usually and they're awfully good in the bouillabaisse. And then here, a pollack filet, a great big thick one that's cut

into big serving pieces. And that's very nice. I think you'd notice that what's the difference between pollack and here's the difference between pollack and cod; you notice the pollack the flecks of it is slightly It's a pinky here and the cod all this fairly white but when it's cooked the pollack becomes just as white and I think some people in America are always thinking that ?his best? and so forth which is silly. No for the lobster, Cut it up Into pieces and it goes it goes just like that into the bouillabaisse and you can prepare all of the fish ahead of time to put it over here. You can prepare it all ahead of time and then refrigerate it it. So in other words when you're ready to go. You're every everything is all ready to go into the pot. There are now.

This is called a fish frame when you take in the filet off the fish, You have what's known as the fringe which is the bones in the head left. And this is what you're going to you to make your fish stock out of and this is the kind of thing that a lot of people throw away and that's just nutty because this is where you get your absolutely lovely flavor. Now this has to be chopped up. This is a big French knife called a batte. You could. get your fish man to do this for you but I think it's rather fun because I think it gets rid of aggressions that people have aggressions against fish. Well I don't think it's chop the head. I don't think it really really needs chopping but the gills ?___? and then that is all ready to go into the fish soup.

But ?__? the gills on that. It doesn't really make too terribly much difference if I didn't. Now, your fish stock is a is at a rapid boil but we could put them in when it isn't that a rapid boil, it doesn't really make any difference. But the fish frame right into the soup. and the head. And this you want to let cook for about 30 or 40 minutes. That gives it a marvelous flavor. It's such wonderful fun shopping in Marseille 'cause the fish is just so fresh' and the fish wives are great fun. [voices of fish wives] [voices of fish wives]

[voices of fish wives] [voices of fish wives]he. [voices of fish wives] [voices of fish wives]

[voices of fish wives] See. What. We. See.[J.Child interacting with fish wives) That's fine.

[voices of fish wives] [voices of fish wives] That now. ?This? Isn't that a wonderful old girl? Some of these women look so fierce but they're just terribly nice and they this love to kid around. Now here's a fish for our bouillabaisse. And after you have your base, here, that's cooked down and cooked for 40 minutes, you strain it out and there it is, ready to have the fish go in and now what it is, what is known as ?a super deports Jonah? in the Marsaille accent. ?That's what? it's all straightened out and has a marvelous flavor and it's a very popular soup soup just like this with some diced potatoes or pasta cooked in it. ?in there? serve it with french bread and the way to turn it into bouillabaisse

is just to put the fish in. so we're going to put the firm fleshed fish in ?is one that's? ?clear? and that was just the bass and here's is ?these? Though I hope that that Is the halibut but that's one reason for leaving the skin on you can tell what it is. There's another piece of bass and in goes the lobster. That was just one whole lobster cut up is going to serve about 6 to 8 people and then you want to bring that fast up to boil for about just about 5 minutes. But you don't want to overcook it you don't want to start cooking the bouillabaisse until just the last minute because you you've got your soup all made so that you can have that made ahead of time when your fish is in the refrigerator still 20 minutes before you're ready to serve, in goes your fish. Then after this This is all cooked for 20 minutes and you ?then? in your

less-firm-fleshed fish which would be your pollack and flounders and whole fish if you have them, and the scallops and if you have mussels and clams, you put them in, also and then again you let it cook fast for 20 minutes only for 5 minutes and it is ready to serve. Thank you. You want to have a big platter ready for the a soup tureen and then the fish goes out onto the the platter. Here comes some of that lobster.

It's always a very colorful looking dish it. Wow, there's some of our striped bass and lobster. You'll see why you want to do this just at the very last minute. because you'll never be able to keep it warm on your platter, otherwise. There. And then the soup goes into a tureen. I don't think I have all of the fish out there with this is to give you an idea in your soup into the tureen

and it has a wonderful, wonderful smell ?goes on? there. You want to put a little parsley roughly chopped parsley over the fish and then you want to put some ?home often? find it. ?Oh well there? You want to pour a little bit of the moisten that with a little bit of your soup and then that is all ready to serve. As you can see first of all but 20, 20 minutes before you're ready to serve you start putting the fish in and then you're ready to cook it. And now we're serving it. You put two pieces of French

bread into a great big deep platter and then you put some fish on the bread and you want to try to give people a little bit of each type of fish. There's a bit of a striped bass and a nice piece of lobster, and then you put pour some soup over all. And then you eat eat the whole thing with a ?school of? a big soup spoon a fork and you just find that it's absolutely a delicious meal and certainly there's a full course meal. I mean it's a full main course. Oh, I think we've gotten it right. The right thing there. And that this is a wine. I think that a Reisling is a a very nice wine and one of these Alsatians because it's dry and it's

good. Now this is a great bouillabaisse but if you want to see the real recipe you have to go to Marsaille and get it from our old friend in the fish market who gave it to me. [voices of fish wives] [voices of fish wives and J. Child] [voices of fish wives and J. Child] [voices of fish wives and J. Child] [voices of fish wives and J. Child] That's all for today on 'The French Chef.' This is Julia Child.

Bon appetite [voices of fish wives;'French Chef' theme music plays] Announcer: The French Chef has been made possible by a grant from the Polaroid corporation. is co-author of Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volumes 1 and 2.