You need a couple of fish. Quantities are for 4 bowls of soup. Including prep and cooking you need 2,5 hours.
The stock:
Clean the fish and use the head and bones to make a stock. Simmer fish bones in 2,5 liters of water for 20 minutes. Drain through sieve and add onion, fennel, leek, celery, carrot, mushrooms and thyme. Boil for 30 minutes, drain through sieve and reduce to 1,5 liter.
Keep the fillet aside.
The soup:
Heat 100 ml olive oil. Add 3 gloves of sliced garlic and (cut roughly, 75 gram each): onion, celery stick, leek and fennel. Simmer for 20 minutes on a low fire.
Add: orange peel, 200 gram canned tomatoes, red chili pepper, bay leaf, thyme, saffron, fennel seeds, fish fillet and un-peeled shrimp.
Fry on high heat for 3 minutes.
Add fish stock (1,5 liters) and juice of half an orange. Simmer for 40 minutes.
Puree the soup and drain through a cone sieve. You can use the puree to make fish cookies.
Season with salt, pepper and cayenne pepper.
Serve with croutons and rouille. Croutons: fry bread in olive oil and rub with garlic.
This is a simple but tasty soup. You can dress it up with pieces of fish fillet, snails, sliced celery stick, thin slices of chili pepper, shrimp or other seafood, like clams.
