Bouillabaisse-Style Seafood Soup

Ingredients

• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 fennel bulb, thinly sliced
• 1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes
• salt and black pepper
• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 150 ml dry white wine
• 600 ml fish stock
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 pinch saffron threads
• 1 orange, zested
• 300 g raw king prawns, peeled and deveined
• 400 g mussels, scrubbed
• rouille, toasted baguette, and parsley, to serve
• 400 g firm cod fillets, cut into large chunks
• Dressed rocket salad with shaved parmesan, to serve
• Crusty ciabatta, to serve

Method

1. Steep the saffron threads in 2 tablespoons of warm water for 10 minutes — they'll bloom into a deep amber. This is non-negotiable; saffron added dry never gives up its full colour or perfume.
2. Heat the olive oil in a large heavy pot over medium heat. Add the onion, fennel and red pepper with a good pinch of salt and cook for 8–10 minutes, stirring now and then, until softened and just starting to catch gold at the edges. The salt now draws the water out and gets the sweetness moving.
3. Stir in the garlic, smoked paprika and orange zest and cook for 30–60 seconds until fragrant — watch the garlic, don't let it go past pale gold. Burnt garlic turns the whole pot bitter, and you can't claw it back. Bloom the paprika in the oil at the same time; raw paprika tastes dusty, bloomed paprika tastes of itself.
4. Pour in the white wine and let it bubble hard for 2 minutes to cook off the rawness. Tip in the chopped tomatoes along with the fish stock and the saffron with its soaking water — the stock and wine are what break the tomatoes down into a proper broth rather than letting them taste of heated tin. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook uncovered for 15 minutes, until the base has thickened slightly and tastes properly rounded. Season with salt and black pepper, then taste — adjust now, not at the table.
5. Slip the white fish chunks in and simmer gently for 3 minutes — you want them barely set, still translucent at the centre. They'll finish cooking in the residual heat.
6. Scatter in the prawns and mussels, cover, and cook for 4–5 minutes until the mussels have all opened and the prawns have turned coral-pink and firm. Discard any mussels that stay stubbornly shut.
7. Taste the broth one last time and adjust the seasoning — a final pinch of salt, a crack of pepper. The saffron-tomato base needs to taste alive, not flat.
8. Ladle the soup into deep, wide bowls. Top each toasted baguette slice with a generous spoon of rouille and float them on the surface. Scatter over the chopped parsley and finish with a slow drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.