French Fish Soup with Aioli and Fresh Vegetables

Welcome to The Storied Recipe Podcast, a podcast about food, culture, and love. 

This recipe for French Fish Soup with Aioli and Fresh Vegetables came from my podcast guest, Selina Goeldi. Make sure you listen to her episode A Meal by the Fire: French Soup and Stories in Selina Country Castle while you make her Seafood Soup with Garlic Aioli!   

"It's like a poem."

That's what my friend Alé said about this delicious French Fish Soup when we ate it at Selina's chateau in France. (Listen to the episode here and see images here.)

The soup is gently seasoned with herbs, citrus, broth, and a garlic aioli added by the individual.

This approach keeps the soup full of flavor but also light - leaving plenty of appetite for hunks of bread, also dipped in the aioli 😉

P.S. Love seafood soups? Check out this recipe for distinctive and delicious Shorshe Mach (Mustard Fish Curry), or this perfectly balanced recipe for Gluten Free Clam Chowder (Creamy Tomato Connecticut Chowder).

French Fish Soup Recipe = Bouillabaisse?

Despite many, many similarities between Selina's fish stew and Bouillabiasse (i.e. multiple types of seafood, citrus notes, fresh vegetables, seasoned with aioli), there are still three good reasons Selina doesn't call hers Bouillabaisse.

1. It's simply a regional distinction. Bouillabaisse is a soup from the south of France and Selina lives and hosts her culinary retreats in Vesoul.
2. Bouillabaisse is often put through a blender. Everything in Selina's soup stays whole and distinct.
3. Selina's recipe is very flexible. Traditional French Bouillabaisse is originally from Marseille (southern France), a port city on the Mediterranean. Traditionally, it has at least seven different types of elusive fish that can be found in the waters of the Mediterranean.

Ingredients & Substitutions

More than almost any dish, soups are so versatile! Please feel free to experiment, play, and adjust to taste! Also, soups are so great for using up things languishing in your fridge, freezer, or pantry. So use this list as a reference, not a prescription!

In order of adding to the recipe:

• Vegetables - Selina's recipe calls for carrots, leeks, onions, celery. Many bouillabaisse recipes call for fennel, which would also work great in this one! You'll use these to deepen the flavor of the broths.
• Dry white wine - I didn't have anything dry at home, so I grabbed something with a fruity, citrus vibe that a guest brought over a few weeks ago
• Broth: The ideal is seafood broth, which you can make yourself from your seafood shells. But you can also use a premaid seafood broth. Also, if want to downplay the seafood broth a bit, you can even use vegetable or chicken broth.
• Soup herbs - Choose your own taste from parsley, oregano, tarragon, and lemon thyme. Again, you'll use this to deepen the flavor of the broth.
• Additional seafood: Prawns, shrimp, crayfish, or mussels.
• Fish! (of course) - Selina used fresh pollock and fresh salmon. I opted for frozen whiting with the bones removed and fresh salmon. Selina suggests a fresh, firm white fish and using the thick back, rather than the fillet.
• Citrus - Orange is actually traditional and what Selina uses! I chose lemon because it's what I had 🙂
• Tomatoes - As one of the last things added, these add flavor, yes, but especially a beauty and elegance to the soup.

Aioli

• Olive oil, eggs, white pepper - Nothing to say about these 🙂
• Garlic - fresh is best. But feel free to use dry or minced.
• Fleur de sel - this is a special kind of sea salt harvested by hand from the surface of sea water. And that's amazing! But sea salt is fine also 😉

Instructions

Aioli

• Using an immersion blender, add in the egg(s) and slowly add the olive oil until thickened.
• Add in the garlic, salt, pepper, blitz with the blender then chill in the fridge.

Soup

• Morning: Saute all vegetables with white wine, herbs, and lemon.
• 2 hours before serving: Add orange and homemade fish stock and salt and reduce to medium heat.
• Add potatoes to the stock, then add the tomatoes
• Cut fish fillets in large pieces, remove both small and large bones, place on a steamer inside pot then add prawns. Cook until done.
• Cook mussels in a separate large saucepan with some of broth . Once cooked, add them back into the soup, cook, then serve with aioli and some crusty bread.

What is the Difference Between Aioli and Mayonnaise? 

What separates aioli from garlic mayonnaise? Well, as Bon Appetit explains, they are both emulsions - meaning that oil is forced to mix with water-based ingredients such as lemon juice (or vinegar), mustard, egg yolk, and salt. 

Traditional aioli that originated in the Mediterranean was simply olive oil and garlic emulsified together. Today however, eggs are added to create more of a garlicky mayonnaise.

source: Bon Appetit

Types of Fish in a Traditional Bouillabaisse Recipe

"White fish" is blessedly vague 🙂 You can easily find a variety of fish accessible in your local grocery store. So the following paragraph is more a point of information...

Historically, traditional recipes from Marseilles in the south of France prescribe a minimum of 7 different kinds of fish and other types of fresh seafood such as lobster, crabs, and mussels. If you are able to acquire some fish from this region to make a more "authentic fish soup" here are some varieties of fish that are typically used for a traditional Bouillabaisse: 

• Scorpion fish
• Conger eel
• Monkfish
• Sea bass
• Sea bream
• Red mullet
• John Dory
• Whiting

​source: Serious Eats

Equipment

• Dutch oven OR large stock pot with a lid
• Steam basket that fits inside your pot
• Immersion blender OR food processor

Storage

• Best when eaten fresh!
• If you are going to save your leftovers, make sure that the soup is completely cooled, then transfer it to an airtight container and refrigerate for 2-3 days or you can freeze the soup for up to 3 months.

Food Safety

Make sure to remove all fish bones before putting the fish into the pot because they are a choking hazard.

If you are using frozen seafood, don't thaw your seafood at room temperature. You should gradually thaw it in the refrigerator overnight.

More safety guidelines can be found on FoodSafety.gov.

More Seafood Recipes

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Recipe

French Fish Soup with Aioli and Fresh Vegetables

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5 from 2 reviews

• Total Time: 3 hours

Print Recipe

Description

This beautiful fresh French fish soup recipe comes from my friend Selina, who hosts culinary retreats in the French countryside! Seasoned with herbs and aioli, it is warming, but light enough to eat in summer. But above all, it is visually stunning!

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Ingredients

Units USM Scale 1x2x3x

Soup Ingredients

• 4-6 whole carrots (more if younger and thinner, less if older and thicker)
• 1 leek
• 1/2 onion
• 4 cups stock
• 4 cups water
• 1/2 bunch of soup herbs (parsley, oregano, tarragon, lemon thyme plus more for garnishing.)
• 1 lemon or orange
• 1/2 bottle of dry white wine
• 1 lb shellfish (e.g. mussels, crayfish, shrimp)
• 1 tsp sea salt (to taste, Fleur de sel is preferable)
• Olive oil
• 3/4 lb white fish
• 3/4 lb salmon
• 4-5 medium potatoes (evenly chopped)
• 3-4 tomatoes
• Giant prawns

Soup Garnish

• Mussels
• Halved lemons
• Herbs

Aioli

• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp fleur de sal (aka sea salt)
• 1 tsp white pepper
• 4-5 cloves garlic (fresh is best)

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

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Instructions

Cue Up The Episode!

1. Make sure you listen to A Meal by the Fire: French Soup and Stories in Selina's Country Castle while you make her amazing French Fish Soup with Aioli.

The Morning Of

1. In a dutch oven (or a large stockpot), saute the vegetables with a little olive oil.
2. Deglaze the vegetables with white wine.

Make The Aioli

1. Put the whole egg(s) in the container and mix with the immersion blender for a few seconds.
2. Very slowly and gently add in the olive oil a drop at a time or in a very thin thread until the aioli thickens. This will take awhile.
3. Crush the garlic and add it into the egg mixture along with sea salt, and white pepper. Taste and adjust seasonings to your preference.

Two Hours Before Serving

1. Take the deglazed pot with vegetables and add 1/2 bottle of white wine, 4 cups of stock and enough water to cover the vegetables.
2. Add herbs to the stock in a bundle, so you can easily remove the bundles later.

One Hour Before Serving

1. Bring the stock to a boil. Add the potatoes, peeled and quartered. Also add the citrus slices and or citrus peel.
2. If necessary, as more stock and/or water to cover the potatoes and let simmer for at least 45 minutes, or until potatoes are cooked. Taste and season with sea salt and white pepper.
3. Cut the fish into large pieces and remove all of the bones in preparation for cooking. Also peel the shellfish, if using. If using mussels, precook them and rinse in cold water.

15 minutes before serving

1. Add the tomatoes with the cut side facing up.
2. Place the fish and the shellfish in a steamer basket that fits inside the stockpot or dutch oven. If you don't have one, simply place the seafood directly into the soup.
3. Cook for 5-12 minutes. The fish should be slightly translucent on the inside.

Serve

1. Serve the soup in soup bowls. Be mindful of adding a little bit of everything to each bowl. Let your guests add aioli to their own taste.

Notes

Make sure you listen to Selina's episode of The Storied Recipe Podcast, A Meal By The Fire while you make her amazing French Fish Soup with Aioli.

• Prep Time: 30 minutes
• Cook Time: 2 hours 30 minutes
• Category: Soup
• Cuisine: French

Nutrition

• Calories: 3247
• Sugar: 37
• Sodium: 8480
• Fat: 147
• Saturated Fat: 23
• Carbohydrates: 229
• Fiber: 31
• Protein: 195
• Cholesterol: 586