Bouillabaisse
About 3 lbs. of fish
2 onions
2 table-spoons of olive oil
¹⁄₂ a lemon
2 small tomatoes
1 glass white wine
1 laurel leaf
4 pepper corns
1 table-spoon chopped parsley
Bread
Wash the fish and cut it across in slices of different sizes. Take a large iron sauce-pan, fry the onions with olive oil in it. When they are coloured a good brown add the fish to the sauce-pan and just cover it with warm water. Add also a laurel leaf, the inside of half a lemon (from which the pips have been removed), two small tomatoes (peeled and the seeds taken out) cut in dice and a glass of light white wine, the pepper-corns and salt. Make up a big fire. Set the sauce-pan on it and let the contents boil violently for twelve to fifteen minutes. Then add a table-spoon of chopped parsley. Let it continue boiling for a minute.
In a warmed soup tureen put a number of slices of roll or bread. Pour the liquid over them. See that they become thoroughly soaked with it. Add the best of the fish and serve.
The best fish to use for Bouillabaisse are cod, whiting, mullet, sole, turbot and langouste. It is absolutely essential that all the fish used should be perfectly fresh.
In France 4 cloves of garlic would be added with the tomatoes, but this is optional.
Fish Soup
1 lb. cod or halibut
1 quart milk
1 sliced onion
1 table-spoon white roux
Cook the fish in boiling salted water until it flakes easily. Drain it. Take away the bones and skin and rub the fish through a sieve. Put the sliced onion in the milk and boil for ten minutes. Remove the onion. Add the white roux (see [p. 12]) to the milk. Stir till well mixed. Add the fish. Season.