Cooking with Dr. Monkey

Today's episode: Fish soup.

This is a modified bouillabaisse recipe I saw Rachel Ray do on one of her ten thousand TV shows one night. I made it the exact way she did the first time and then I've been monkeying around with it ever since. I started out by slicing three leeks and sauteing them in half a cup of this white wine:I also added a table spoon of cracked black pepper, a dash of sea salt, and three sliced garlic cloves. Next I chopped up some Chilean sea bass into bite sized chunks and then I added it to the leeks. You can use any white fish you like and you can use a combination of different fish if you like as well. When I make this at the beach I use fresh scallops, shrimp, and something like cod or grouper. This is what it all looked like before I added two cans of organic chicken broth:When I added the broth I also added slices of fresh orange peel, be careful not to get too much of the pith on the peel, a smattering of spinach (about a cup) I had in a bag in the fridge, and two finely sliced celery stalks, along with the leaves from the center of the celery. I also added about half a cup of fresh cut and finely sliced herbs which included tarragon, lemon basil, and oregano. I then let all that simmer in my pot while I made my roux.

The first step in making the roux is to roast some red pepper. I used one and a quarter red peppers. I coated the pepper in extra virgin olive oil and I stuck them in my oven, skin side up, to broil.
The key is leaving them in the oven long enough to get the skin off easily. This is what they looked like when I took them out:I scraped the skin off the peppers with a steak knife and I put the pepper slices in my food processor. I added a ladle full of broth from my simmering soup, a couple of finely diced cloves of garlic, and about two cups of fresh bread crumbs. I used Habenero Surprise bread, which I bought from Scratch Foodworks here in Johnson City, to make my crumbs with because I wanted a little extra "oomph" to my roux. You can use store bought French bread or any kind of bread to make your crumbs with if you decide to make this dish. After I pulsed the pepper and broth together I added the crumbs and this is what the finished roux looked like:As my soup finished simmering I cut some bread into semi bite sized slices and I toasted it.When my soup was done I ladled it into the bowls and I topped it with four peices of the cut up bread and I topped it with some roux.I served it up with some carrot sticks and it was mighty tasty. Oh yeah, don't serve the orange peel when you serve up the soup, it's only there to impart citrus flavor to the broth.