Part of our series on growing and cooking with herbs

One of the big success stories in our herb growing endeavours started as a small sickly looking rosemary plant we’d been given in a pot that never seemed to get any bigger. We gave it a last chance and planted it in the front garden. That little rosemary loved being in the ground. It grew bigger, and bigger and bigger. It is now a massive shapely bush that gives off wonderful scent right outside our living room window and produces the most delicious tender sprigs of rosemary for anything from stews to garnishing roast meats. I thought it would be nice to offer a recipe that uses rosemary with fish. Not what most people would think of using it for as rosemary has such a powerful flavour, but you’ll love this one.

Simple Rosemary Bouillabaisse with Mashed Potato

We like this recipe, not just because it tastes good, but because it takes so little time to prepare

Whilst this only a bouillabaisse in the very loosest sense the principal of it being a fish stew seasoned with herbs is still there. The whole idea of a bouillabaisse is that you can toss in a mix of pretty much any fish, so there is no reason why you can’t vary this basic recipe to use whatever fishyness you have in your fridge or freezer.

For us the appeal is that it allows the use of very cheap basic cuts of frozen white fish like pollack or basa along with low priced tiny Atlantic prawns, and still delivers a distinctly aromatic and wonderfully flavoured meal.

Ingredients

2-3 pieces of white fish cut into 1cm slices*

125g frozen cooked prawns

1 onion chopped

2 sticks of celery finely sliced

400g tin of chopped tomatoes

3-4 sprigs of rosemary

1Kg of unpeeled potatoes chopped

20g butter or margarine.

splash of milk.

*Prepartaion tip. If your fish is frozen solid, put the pieces in a dish and cover with just boiled water while you are preparing the rest of the ingredients; it will have defrosted enough to cut with a sharp knife or scissors by the time you need it. Fish can be cooked from frozen so don’t worry if it still a bit icy when you put it in the pan.

Cut the potatoes into rough pieces and put them into a medium saucepan. Fill with enough water to cover the potatoes and bring to a boil. Once boiling put the lid on the pan lower the heat and simmer for 20 minutes. If you leave the skins on you will be getting much more of the goodness.

With the potatoes cooking in the background, fry the onion for a couple of minutes then drop in the celery and fry for another couple. Add the rosemary sprigs and the  the fish and gently stir into the vegetables without breaking the fish up. Stir in the tomatoes bring the sauce to the boil, then turn the heat right down and allow it to simmer. 

A couple of minutes before the potatoes are ready add the prawns (they just need to defrost and warm through, if you put them in too early they will shrink to nothing).

Once the potatoes are cooked drain the water add a splash of milk and the butter then mash. Finally whip it with a fork to give a smooth textured creamy mash.

Serve in dishes as the sauce will be fairly runny.