La Bouillabaisse! (sort of)

(Before adding broth - see below for the finished product!)

In honor of National Bouillabaisse Day, and the last (real) exam I finished this year, I made a fish stew - not quite bouillabaisse (which has a 1001 specifications for it to be called the real deal), and not quite cioppino (the Italian rendering of the stew with tomato).


The first time I had bouillabaisse was at Martick's, in Baltimore, with ML, perhaps three or four years ago. It was wonderfully decadent: rich, buttery, thick, herbal. No, there is no substitute for Martick's and his former hobbit hole. You had to knock to enter, and a pair of eyes would peek at you through a sliding window (or was it just a window? perhaps I romanticize slightly) before letting you in, speakeasy style. But I do think I've found a home cook's version of alternate greatness, in a bowl. Minus lobster, for fiscal reasons (I couldn't justify the cost given the chance this could have gone colossally wrong). My version:
I incorporated ideas from various recipes - mostly this one, which is utterly un-Marseillais, and this one from Gourmet (rest in peace). Below is what I did. Most of the work is waiting for the fish stock to do its job.

Per serving (yes, I happily indulged alone!):
3 jumbo shrimp
2 giant scallops, halved
2 cherrystone clams (or a half dozen little neck clams)
1/2 tilapia filet

For broth:
1 q fish stock
1 c chicken broth
2 cloves garlic
1/3 c chopped white onions
1/2 c white wine
zest from 1/4 orange
2 T tomato sauce
"italian seasoning" (dried thyme/parsley)
dash of Old Bay
salt, pepper
leeks (I forgot this)

linguine


1. Make fish stock. Or defrost fish stock from your freezer. Or (I hesitate to suggest this, because I've never tried it - buy it in a carton?) Boil fish bones for 2 hours with 1/2 c white wine, 1 q water, dried thyme/parsley/tarragon ("italian seasoning"), 1 c chicken broth (heresy, I know, but this is what I did and it was damnably good), 2 T tomato sauce, salt, pepper, 2 cloves garlic, 1/3 c onion (diced). Notice this is a milder recipe & requires less garlic/onion than I usually throw in.

2. When you're ready to eat, boil some water and throw in your dried linguine. Scrub 2 cherrystone clams (they're about 3 times the size of a littleneck clam) clean of dirt/sludge and throw them into the boiling water along with your linguine. Don't cook them with your broth because there will be sand and such that come out of the clams, which you can rinse off linguine by fishing the strands out of the boiling water, but not from a stew.

3. Devein & clean 3 jumbo shrimp. Using a slotted spoon, lower the shrimp in your boiling broth for about a minute. It shouldn't take more than 2 minutes. You want it JUST underdone because it keeps cooking. Once it's done, set it in a separate bowl.

4. Throw in a filet of frozen tilapia (I used half of a filet). Take out the clams from the pasta pot if they're done (they'll open wide when ready) and set them in your shrimp bowl. Clean the scallops and chop them into halves if they're too big for a single bite. Plunge them in your boiling broth again with your slotted spoon. These guys take about 2 minutes as well.

5. When the scallops are done, take them out of the broth and into your bowl. In a second (serving) bowl, arrange the linguine at the bottom (taking care NOT to dump the water the clams were also cooking in), then dump your seafood on top. Ladle the broth over everything and eat immediately. I was so excited to eat this that I forgot to put lemon juice on everything but it really wasn't necessary.

Save the clam/pasta juice, clam shells, and shrimp shells to make stock. If you don't have the time, dump it into a freezer bag and make it later. But for goodness sake, don't throw it out.