Sunday Bouillabaisse

So, Sunday dinner is kind of a huge deal with my family.  We usually eat together every Sunday at NOON or 2pm if people are coming.  If dinner is late, my dad goes crazy and we rush to get dinner on the table.  Yes, dinner at noon.  Trust me, after eating this meal, you won't want to eat again for days.  Usual Sunday dinner consists of a gravy and pasta for the first course.  Second course is usually a chicken or spadina with salad and corn and egg or broccoli and egg frittata.  Then dessert, which is just any cake we find at the store or cheese cake Honey(grandma) made.

This Sunday, they let me cook.  I seem to have proven myself worthy of cooking on Sunday after cooking for my parents basically all summer.  The parents felt like eating seafood and my mom started taking out all the fish my dad ever caught--seemed like it anyway--and shrimp and imitation crab meat.  So I piped in with "Let's do a bouillabaisse."  My dad looked confused and disgusted all at the same time and replied "you do and you'll clean it up," while my mom was open to the idea.  I won!  Yay!  Bouillabaisse it was.

This stuff is so good and so ridiculously arduous to make.  The French would probably kill me for what I've done to this bouillabaisse.  We used crab boil.  We use it in almost everything we cook.  If it tasted good with cream cheese it would go in our cheese cakes.  I did not separate the ocean dwelling ingredients from the soup when I served.  And, I used imitation crab meat as well as lemons.  I KNOW!!! IMITATION CRAB MEAT AND TILAPIA!!! Blaspheme! Forgive me Arielle!!!  It's what we had in the freezer, can't waste things... So I guess this should be called my New Orleans Bouillabaisse.  Keep in mind, you can use whatever seafood you like, i.e. oysters, clams, mussels, REAL crab meat, etc. This still came out great with a wonderful lemon-garlic-seafood flavor(Honey couldn't get over how good it was). I'm going to attempt to tell you what I did so you can do it too.  If you like, we can do a video of this...just ask.

You will need:

1lb shrimp

1/2 lb imitation crab meat

1 small sack of mussels

a few fish(we only used 2 tilapia)

2 lemons

1/4 cup liquid crab boil

1/2 an onion chopped

white part only of 1 1/2 leeks chopped

olive oil

4-ish toes of garlic

pinch of saffron

1/2lb  tomatoes skinned and seeded

herbs like thyme, rosemary, parsley (I use a mix called Herbs de Provence from the International Market)

First, make sure all your mussels are good to cook.  Throw out broken and open shells that won't close with some persuasion, i.e. gently knocking it closed.  The dead one's are bad, just like crawfish...if the tail is straight don't eat, if the shell won't close don't eat! 

Soak seafood in crab boil, lemon(cut in half or quartered), and water to thaw if frozen like ours were.

Saute your onions and leeks till transparent with some oil, salt, pepper, herbs and saffron.  Add the tomatoes and 2 cloves of smashed garlic--blend in and cook for about 2min.(My sous chefs, aka mom and dad, did all the chopping and preparation...I hate chopping onions)  Add in the mussels and fish, and 6 cups of water.  Bring to a boil and cook for 7 minutes.  Add in shrimp and imitation crab meat.  Let cook for another 10 minutes. 

Blend the juice of one lemon, 4 toes of garlic, a pinch of salt, and a dash of olive oil.  Pour into pot and let cook a few minutes more. VOILA! You have my version of Bouillabaisse.

I served this with a baguette from Rouses that I sliced, and spread minced garlic, olive oil, and butter on before toasting in the oven.  And some steamed cauliflower.  You steam the cauliflower, then in a bowl mix some sliced onion, garlic salt, olive oil and white vinegar with it.  Refrigerate and serve.  Its ok hot, but I prefer it cold the next day when the vinegar has really soaked in.

I also made a rouille to go with the bouillabaisse, but it took away the wonderful lemony flavor.  My dad preferred the spice of the rouille so here's the recipe:

blend 2 egg yolks, 2 sliced chili peppers, 3/4 cup olive oil, a tsp of the soup and some garlic.

Oh, almost forgot, we had sfingiune too.  Its just a pizza dough drizzled with olive oil, romano and parmesan cheese, sliced onion, and anchovies baked in the oven till cheese is melted or browned.  Enjoy this light fare with some white wine!!

 Sfingiune, bread, cauliflower, bouillabaisse

 bouillabaisse

cauliflower and bread