I've been wanting to taste this again since our visit to Chartres. Before tramping up to the cathedral, we ate outside at a little bistro.

The wind was blowing so hard that the glasses danced on the table (a la Amelie). One glass danced right off of a table, to the chagrin of the waiter. And there I had the best fish soup I've ever had, with fun little bread toasts and rouille to float in it.

I adapted this recipe (I didn't discard any solids, I just pureed it with an immersion blender, and our local grocery store doesn't carry saffron or fennel root, so I used some herbes de Provence instead), making my own rouille with a recipe I had at home. It ended up being a fair amount of work, but a fun (and yummy!) trip down memory lane.

Yum!!

Fennel and anise are the same, maybe anise seed could be a substitute. I do love cooking with fennel root.

Good for you and your cooking experiments!