Recipes from "A Week on the Water": Bourride

Founder of Boutique Hotel Barges and "A Week on the Water" author, Hazel Young, is a graduate of the French National Cooking School in Beaune. She has run numerous cooking seminars and culinary cruises aboard her former barge Fandango, and planned the boutique barge's extraordinary menus for over two decades.

Bourride is a stew of vegetables, fish and fruites de mer that has its origins in the Landguedoc and Provence regions of Southern France. The name is derived from the Occitan bourrido, meaning 'something boiled'. Less well known than bouillabaisse, but equally delicious, the major difference between the two dishes comes from the garlic-rich aioli added to the bourride at the end of cooking, giving it a creaminess and wonderful aroma.

Bourride

Monk fish and mussels in a spicy aioli stew.

• 1kg (2.2 lbs) monkfish, filleted and cut into small pieces
• 1kg (2.2 lbs) mussels, cleaned
• 2 leeks washed and finely sliced
• 2 carrots peeled and finely sliced
• 2 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
• 1 zucchini, diced
• 1 tablespoon fresh parsley
• salt and pepper
• 1 tablespoon paella spice
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red hot peppers or cayenne
• 3 bay leaves
• 1 cup white wine
• 1 L (7 cups) water
• liquid from mussels after steaming
• 1 cup homemade tomato sauce
• 1 tablespoon vegetable stock paste
• 2 cups homemade mayonnaise aioli*

Heat olive oil and gently fry leeks until translucent. Add carrots and potatoes, and stir over a low flame until coated in oil.Meanwhile steam mussels for 5 minutes in separate saucepan with a lid on, no extra water needed, to obtain liquid.

Drain mussels and add stock to vegetables along with white wine, water, tomato sauce, stock paste and seasonings. Let simmer for 20 minutes then add zucchini and simmer another ten minutes.

Remove half of the mussels from their shells then set all mussels aside to add at the last minute. When ready to serve, add monkfish and simmer for only two or three minutes, adding mussels.

Remove from heat, stir in 1 cup of aioli.

Put into individual bowls, decorate with two or three mussels in their shells on the top. Serve extra aioli in small individual sauce dishes.

Aïoli mayonnaise*

• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon white ground pepper
• 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon cider vinegar

All ingredients should be at room temperature to ensure success.

In a deep bowl, whisk mustard with egg yolk, then drizzle in the vegetable oil whisking vigorously, hold back the oil and beat more if it isn’t thickening fast enough. If ever it separates, put a tablespoon of boiling hot water into a new bowl and whisk the mixture once again until it thickens. Resume adding the rest of the oil, beat in vinegar, lemon juice, salt and pepper.

To make aioli, add two cloves of peeled and crushed garlic.