I tasted this in my 20's and never tried another. I have all prep work done ahead. Ready to serve in about 20 min.

*** Zarzuela (Catalonian)

Simmer 5 min.; strain; discard shells; set this flavored water aside.
12 shrimp shells
1 C. water
1/2 tsp. salt

Saute limp in skillet:
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 lg. onion, halved & sliced

Add & simmer 5 min.
2-3 lg. tomatoes, diced

(may be refrigerated for 6 hrs. at this point)

Add to above; let simmer 4 min. while doing fish:
above flavored water.
1/8 C. filberts, blenderized
1 clove garlic thru garlic press
1/4 C. dry white wine (dry vermouth)
16 cherrystone clams *

Saute just til done in 12" serving skillet:
1/4 C. olive oil
1 lb. sea bass or halibut, cubed & floured
12 lg. peeled shrimp
2 squid (I separate the mantle from the tentacles and cut into pieces)

Add to tomato mixture & pour over fish; stir just to mix:.
1 1/2 T. Pernod

Sprinkle with & serve with crusty bread or rice:
1 Tbsp. minced parsley

* to clean freshly gathered clams soak in ocean water
with 1 Tbsp. cornmeal 4-6 hrs.

It isn't a complex recipe. Think fisherman taking home what he can't sell and cooking it in a tasty broth. The only thing you might get sent to prison for is the lack of rouille on your toast.

If you want potatoes in your soup, then make a Breton Cotriade. I've found you a recipe in English but thereare so many variations of this type of recipe.

http://oneperfectbite.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/cotriade-fish-stew-from-brittany.html

What are your methods for making a really good fish stock, without using a lot of expensive fish? For example, my local Chinese market sells fish heads, tails, and bones for very little money. Most of these are salmon. Would you use these for a stock, or is more fish flesh required?

Fish is an interesting food, in that the price per pound varies widely and can be very high (salmon heads <$1/lb to halibut $20/lb) and the flavors of different fish seem to be more variable (dark mackerel vs light sole) than, say, different parts of a chicken.

I recently visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium and am on a mission to only cook with the most "sustainable" seafood. For example, more farmed salmon, farmed tilapia, farmed trout, sardines and herring, mackerel, farmed shellfish, etc and less/no large tuna and swordfish. Additional challenges are that I am fairly bored with salmon, I find tilapia rather tasteless, and I am trying to avoid buying any seafood produced in China.

I made an excellent fish stock from a whole salmon that Kevin bought at Pike's Market in Seattle when he went to meet with one of his clients, which was Amazon. At first he told me he would not be carrying fish back on the plane for me, but after his visit to Pike's Market, he changed his mind. I bought a very expensive (about $120) large stainless steel Italian fish poaching pan at our local restaurant supply store (Surfa's) because I did not have a pan large enough to fit the fish, and I ended up having to cut it anyway, and I froze part of it. I don't remember the recipe for poaching except that it had a lot of ingredients - root vegetables, fresh herbs, etc - and it took a while to poach the whole fish. After it was done, I had an extremely rich fish stock and some extremely bland fish. It was absolutely the best fish stock I had ever had, and I will try to find the recipe - I have it somewhere, probably in an old Julia Child cookbook (paperback). You could probably use the recipe with fishes other than salmon, but salmon does give it a very rich flavor, due to the fat in the salmon. The recipe for the whole fish made a lot of stock, which I froze after it cooled, for later use. It makes a wonderful sauce for a lot of different seafood. The salmon cost about as much as the pan, I think, but it was fairly large.

Another fish you might want to look for is Opah. I believe it comes from Hawaii, and it has a wonderful flavor and is a good substitute for salmon/swordfish - it tastes somewhere in between those two.

It depends whether you want a "bouillon" or a "fumet".

For a bouillon,

• 1 litre ½ water
• 1 branch chopped celery
• 1 small onion cut into quarters
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp ground pepper
• 225 g white fish (no oily fish) cleaned but not boned.
• Simmer it for about half an hour and pass with great care to make sure no bones escape.
• Fumet :
• For 1kg bones etc :
• 1 ltr water. 100mls white wine or Noilly, 1 shallot, bouquet garni, a few peppercorns.
• Melt some butter and add the roughly chopped skin and bones from the fish. Allow it to cook without colouring. Add the shallot and seasoning, then add the water and wine - you want it to come to the surface of the fish for a light fumet and a little less for a stronger flavour. Let it cook for 20 mins, skim then pass through a chinois without pressing. You can further reduce it you want.