Bouillabaisse Bacon

Category: First meal

Ingredients
Any fish heads (salmon, trout, dorado, seabass ...)	5 pieces
Whole medium fish (up to 500g), preferably SEA	2 pcs
Red onion	400gr
Fresh tomatoes	300gr
Tomato paste	65gr
Garlic	1-2 heads (not lobules)
Small dried hot peppers	To taste or 3pcs
Olive oil	35ml
Laurel	2-3lists
Thyme seeds	1h l.
Cumin seeds (or anise)	1h l.
Dried dill	1 / 2h l.
Rosemary	1h l.
Dry white wine (or still champagne)	1/2 bottle
White vodka + cedar liqueur (or cognac)	50ml
Potatoes medium	2 pcs
Saffron	Pinch
Leek	3 rings

Cooking method

Once I saw a recipe for bouillabaisse at Belonica. I love Bouillabaisse dearly, but the very mechanism of Bacon's cooking was very confusing (below you will understand why). After some walking around the bush, I made up my mind. Really the eyes are afraid and the hands are doing. Cooking was no more difficult than borscht, especially with wonderful helpers in the kitchen. The original recipe is given for 30 liters
~~furiously persuade~~ hint that cooking less than 10 liters is stupid. But! There is no 10L pot for my induction machine. Therefore, I had to shrink to 5 liters.
Also, tarragon and fennel had to be replaced with rosemary and caraway seeds and dill, because they were not found in stores. And I really wanted the soup.
And everything worked out! It turned out divinely! It's incredibly delicious!
Well, now what and how was actually done. Do not be intimidated by the volume, I am writing in detail as it is important for the taste of the soup
All workpieces were cut large. This is important and easier of course.
We take the largest pan as for pilaf, or you can use MB in the frying mode.
1) prepare the fish on fillets (in my case, dorado and trout): clean the insides if large (leave the small ones), if the scales do not fly off themselves, you can not peel off (good for our hands), rinse, cut off the tail and heads, cut off (so as not spoil the skin) sharp fins along the back. Cut the fins from the sides and belly. Remove the skin so that there is a large fish fillet without a ridge. Put the fillet in a bowl and put it in the refrigerator for a while (so as not to get confused under your hands for the next hour)
2) It is imperative to remove the gills from the heads, rinse. Divide large heads into smaller parts as possible. (I took the heads of salmon, trout, dorado, mullet, carp and another unknown from previously hidden in the freezer).
Mix in a bowl with tails and fins where there is meat. Sharp fins from the back can be thrown out along with the guts. Place next to the stove
3) prepare seasoning and tomato paste with oil
4) put one fish head to cook separately without seasonings and salt in a small saucepan. Then you will need 1-1.5 liters of this auxiliary broth.
5) take the onion and cut into quarters. Fry (you need a large frying pan !!) in oil with pepper and caraway seeds until the onions are golden brown or translucent
6) add water to cover the onion, add tomato paste, caramelize it over high heat (that is, evaporate the water).
7) at this time, chop the tomatoes in large pieces.
gradually add other aromatic herbs (except for dill and saffron and laurel), garlic directly in the skin (leaving a couple of slices on the table) and fresh tomatoes in large slices into fried onions with tomato paste. Stir for a couple of minutes
IMPORTANT!!! Laurel is not combined with rosemary in one saucepan - do not add it to onions
9) add fish heads, small fish (if also taken), tails, fins to the resulting mixture and fry for 5 minutes. Add dill at the end.
10) transfer everything from the frying pan (MB) into a 5 liter saucepan, remove one separately cooked head from a small saucepan, leek slices and add to the total mass (and set aside the broth from the small saucepan for now) and add water to a volume of 4.6-4 , 8 liters. When it boils - Be sure to skim off the foam and leave on high heat for 30 minutes.
Be sure to remove foam
The photo shows how the main broth is cooked with pepper, seasonings, onions and fish mass.
11) after that, pour the wine and cognac / vodka into the broth in a 5L saucepan and forget about it for 1 hour over low heat. Salt and let it languish.
12) peel the soup potatoes and cut into large circles up to about 1 cm.
This is a must-have item in bouillabaisse. But for its delicate taste - we cook potatoes SEPARATELY
Put in a saucepan, garlic (a couple of peeled cloves), bay leaf, vegetable / fish broth, olive oil (a lot! 2 tablespoons), salt, saffron
Laurel is added only when cooking potatoes !!
Cook the potatoes until cooked, the main thing is not to boil them
Now we return to the main broth, which is simmering in a 5L saucepan (that broth from the small one on 1 head is auxiliary)
1) grind the whole mass in a saucepan with a blender (heads, tails, fins, trifles, tomatoes, onions ....). Well, that's all
On the right side of the photo you can see how I started to grind the soup with a blender. The left side is already frayed.
And then run everything through the chopper. It is important that all boiled bones are finely ground.
I used a juicer here.
Just don’t throw tomatoes at me and you don’t need quotes about a spoiled juicer - everything was perfectly processed, it was very boiled down and the fishy smell was perfectly washed off. I washed it then immediately.
I warn you right away the juicer will not squeeze the mass to the cake as needed (I tried different modes several times), but only grind
We pour the pure broth that could separate in the process into a clean large saucepan (preferably 5 l) and store it like a jewel
What did not squeeze out - we throw it into a rag and squeeze it with handles until dry.
The photo shows from left to right and down:
A) cake after juicer
B) laid back on gauze
C) cake pressed as needed until dry
Ideally, you should have at least 4.5 liters of pure stock broth, which is the main ingredients of bouillabaisse.
The main broth should still simmer after cleaning for 10 minutes.
In the photo, the finished main broth:
2) do not throw out the cake and the cloth / gauze too. We put this case in the auxiliary broth and let it simmer for 5 minutes. Then squeeze again. Now the cake and cheesecloth can be thrown out and 1 ladle of the main one can be poured into the auxiliary broth. And already in this second broth, cook the fish fillet that we made at the beginning and safely ~~forgot~~ put it in the refrigerator.
3) cook fish fillets for 5-10 minutes, depending on the density.
All!!!! Phew !!! Now you can prepare the serve
remove the fish fillet from the second broth, sprinkle with saffron a little (it is not added to the main broth even once)
Mix the second broth with the main
put a couple of potato wedges on top and
pour the main broth that was previously mixed with the auxiliary
Put the remaining fish fillet on a separate plate and eat it in a bite with white bread croutons and rui sauce
Enjoy your pleasure.