Fish Soup with Rouille

Trekking on with our soup “diet”, this fish soup was the next in line. I wasn’t sure at first that I’d like a recipe that asked for puréed fish but it turned all right. The flavour of the soup itself was nice but the texture sort of turned me off. On its own the soup was mediocre. What I really enjoyed about this was the dollop of rouille in the middle with the toasted baguette sliced on which we melted parmesan. So far the accompaniments for the soups in this cookbook are better than the soups themselves. Well we gave this one a 3 out of 5. Were it not for the rouille and baguette, the soup would probably score closer to 2.3. Anywho, here’s the recipe for rouille.

Rouille

2 garlic cloves
1 tsp coarse salt
1 thick slice of white bread, crust removed, soaked in water and squeezed dry
1 fresh red chilli, seeded and roughly chopped
3 tbsp olive oil
salt and cayenne pepper

Long way…Put the garlic and salt in a mortar and crush to a paste with the pestle. Add the soaked bread and chilli and pound until smooth. Whisk in the olive oil, a drop at a time, to make a smooth, shiny sauce that resembles mayonnaise. Season with salt and add a pinch of cayenne.

Short way…Purée everything except olive oil in a small food processor. Slowly pour in olive oil till texture reached.