my.requiescence.

Bourride

I have generally always been afraid to try new things: mostly due to an intense fear of failure and embarassment, underscored by insecurity and indecisiveness. This is something that stems back from my childhood; my parents always characterized me as having “a cautious nature.” As I grew older and gained confidence in myself, I began to progress from trying little things (making new friends in college) to bigger things (moving to a totally unfamiliar city across the country for graduate school), to even bigger things (rock-climbing, and more recently- patent law).

However, the one place where I have always been eager to try new things is the kitchen! This may be due to the fact that my hunger for tasty foods always outweighs the fear of failure. That’s where this soup comes in… it was a brand spanking new endeavor for me. We first tasted this soup at Ten Tables, where we celebrated my birthday with their amazing 3 course tasting menu, and it knocked our socks off. It became my goal to re-create it.

Bourride is a Provençal fish soup that is thickened with aioli (a zesty garlic mayonnaise). It was rich, yet not too heavy due to a bright lemon-y finish, with seafood so fresh they were sweet, and tasty little bits of polenta and earthy kale. I searched for recipes online but none encompassed all the aspects of the soup that we had tasted, so I combined a few recipes and relied heavily on improvisation to achieve the final product.

The entire dish was a challenge because never before have I:

1. Cooked mussels.
2. Cooked monkfish (though I watched an Iron Chef America battle featuring this as the secret ingredient; these guys are seriously “monsters-of-the-deep” ugly!).
3. Cooked kale.
4. Made aioli (by hand, no less).
5. Made a dish where the main components were ingredients I had never worked with or cooked before.

So as you can see, there were several steps at which utter failure was highly imminent… and yet… somehow it all came together. It was so rewarding, not only to my stomach but my psyche as well, because this soup totally rocked and we both felt like we were right back at Ten Tables.

Bourride with Monkfish and Mussels

makes about 4 dinner-sized servings

2 lbs. mussels
1.5 lbs. monkfish fillet
2 leeks, sliced and rinsed
1 bunch of kale, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup white wine
5 cups fish stock (I did not make my own, I found a fish stock concentrate at Whole Foods that I mixed into 5 cups of boiling water- can’t remember the brand, but it was in the canned section by the canned sardines and anchovies)
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 sprigs thyme (fresh)
zest from 1 lemon
1 egg yolk
salt and pepper

1 cup home-made aioli (recipe as follows)
1 cup polenta (recipe as follows)

1. Rinse and scrub mussels. Discard any mussels that are broken.
2. In a large pot or dutch oven, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil on medium heat. Cook leeks and garlic for about 5 minutes. Add white wine, mussels, and thyme sprigs. Let liquid come to a boil, then reduce heat to simmer (low), and cover for 5 minutes.
3. Mussels should be cooked in about 5-8 minutes (mine were done in 6), all mussels should open. If ones do not open, throw those away. Transfer cooked mussels to a separate bowl, to prevent from overcooking.
4. Add fish stock, kale, and polenta and simmer, covered for 30 minutes or until kale is tender (I had no idea how long this would take; I originally started with only 2 cups of fish stock and by the time the kale cooked, half of the soup had boiled off!). In the meantime, sear and cook the monkfish and prepare the aioli.
5. In a medium saucepan, heat one tablespoon of oil on high heat. Sear the monkfish fillets, about 2-4 minutes on each side until nicely browned. Then add to the soup while simmering, and cook until just cooked through. Depending on the thickness of the fillets, should take about 8-12 minutes. Remove cooked fish until soup is ready.
6. Once aioli is ready, mix in another egg yolk. Then add 1/2 cup of simmered soup into aioli mixture and slowly mix. Then slowly add the aioli mixture, 1/2 cup at a time, to the simmering soup. The soup should thicken a bit to become more creamy.
7. Continue to reduce soup at a simmer until it tastes good to you. Add salt, lemon zest, and pepper to the soup.
8. Add the mussels and monkfish back into the soup for a few minutes and serve.

Aioli

5 cloves garlic, finely minced
2 egg yolks (at room temperature)
juice from 1 lemon
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1/2 cup olive oil
pinch of salt

I originally tried doing this in my 9 cup food processor… it did NOT work. I think the area was just too big for the yolk and mustard to form a proper homogeneous emulsion. The aioli broke (separated to look a bit curdled and oily), and I made the mistake of adding a bit to the soup hoping that the soup would fix it… it didn’t. Little oil/egg droplets rested on the top of the soup- definitely not the effect I was looking for. Lesson learned. I got over my fear and just decided to make the aioli as the recipe suggested.. whisking by hand. It was super easy and came together in less than 5 minutes! Once I added all the successful aioli the soup thickened beautifully, AND the droplets from the failed aioli attempt disappeared (whew!).

1. Separate egg yolks (save the whites! You can freeze egg whites!) and whisk. Add mustard and whisk until the emulsion is homogeneous.
2. Slowly dribble olive oil into the egg yolks while whisking briskly. The aioli should come together within a minute or two; the consistency should be similar to mayonnaise.
3. Add the minced garlic and lemon juice to flavor the aioli.

Polenta (makes about 2 cups)

1 cup yellow cornmeal, stone ground (or polenta)
2 1/2 cups boiling water
1/4 cup heavy cream
pinch of salt

1. Begin preparing before the soup. Bring 2 1/2 cups of water to a boil in a small saucepan.
2. Add polenta or cornmeal and whisk briskly to dissolve. Cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes, whisking continuously. Add the heavy cream and continue to whisk and cook for another 5 minutes until the polenta is soft and no longer gritty. The texture should be pretty thick and paste-y (pretty solid).
3. Transfer the polenta to a plate and let cool to room temperature. Add half of the polenta (about 1 cup) to the soup by the spoonful and let dissolve into soup. It will slightly thicken the soup but some solid bites of polenta goodness will remain in the soup.