Fish stew and rouille

I continue to be about a month behind in posting pictures. Near the end of January, my best friend S came over for dinner, and she, B, and I made fish stew (not quite a bouillabaisse, which should have fennel and pernod) and rouille. For the fish stew, we started with a whole sea bass from Berkeley bowl. The trimmings from the fish, along with all our frozen crab shells and ends of aromatics went into a big pot for the stock. The stew itself had a mirepoix of more aromatics, the fish, and clams and mussels. The rouille was very good — we followed Alice Waters' recipe, and got to try out the new stone mortar and pestle B gave me for Christmas. S brought a wonderful bottle of Beaujolais nouveau.

Making the soup:








Making the rouille:





Everything together on the table: