Marmite Dieppoise

Ingredients

• For the fumet
• 500 g sole or turbot bones, rinsed
• 1 leek, roughly sliced
• 2 celery sticks, roughly sliced
• 3 shallots, peeled and halved
• 1 bouquet garni, bay, thyme, parsley stalks
• 200 ml dry white wine
• 200 ml dry Norman cider
• For the fish
• 300 g sole or turbot fillets, skin removed, cut into portions
• 300 g monkfish, trimmed, cut into medallions
• 300 g salmon or sea bass fillets, skin removed, cut into portions
• For the shellfish
• 500 g mussels, scrubbed and debearded
• 8 langoustines, live or very fresh, in their shells
• 8 scallops, shelled, corals intact if present
• 150 g shrimp, raw, shell on; added at the finish
• For the sauce
• 300 ml crème fraîche
• 50 g unsalted butter, cold, cut into cubes
• For the garnish
• 2 leeks, white and pale-green parts only, finely julienned, blanched
• To serve
• 1 good country bread or sourdough loaf, sliced; no potatoes

Method

1. 1
   Combine the fish bones, leek, celery, shallots, bouquet garni, white wine, and dry cider in a large saucepan. Cover with cold water. Bring to a bare simmer and cook for 20 minutes; do not allow to boil. Strain through a fine sieve, pressing lightly. The fumet should be pale, clear, and faintly sweet with cider.
2. 2
   Steam the mussels in a covered pan over high heat with a splash of the fumet until they open — 3 to 4 minutes. Remove immediately; discard any that remain shut. Strain the mussel liquor through muslin into the fumet. Add the langoustines, in their shells, to the combined liquor and poach for 3 minutes over a moderate heat; remove and reserve. Add the scallops for 2 minutes; remove and reserve. The combined shellfish-fumet liquor is now the poaching medium.
3. 3
   This is where the dish lives or dies: bring the combined liquor to exactly 78–80 °C — a trembling surface, no rolling boil — and slide in the monkfish medallions. After 3 minutes add the sole or turbot and the salmon or sea bass. After a further 4–5 minutes the flesh should yield to the lightest pressure without flaking apart; it must remain barely set at the centre. Lift all fish carefully from the liquor and keep warm.
4. 4
   Add the raw shrimp to the residual hot liquor off direct heat; they require only 1–2 minutes until they are pink and just firm. Remove and reserve with the other shellfish.
5. 5
   Return the poaching liquor to a wide pan over a brisk flame and reduce by half. Add the crème fraîche and continue to reduce until the sauce coats a spoon in a thin, pourable layer — it must not be pasty. Remove from the heat and whisk in the cold butter cube by cube until the sauce is glossy and ivory in colour. Adjust seasoning.
6. 6
   Warm a deep terrine or copper marmite. Arrange the fish portions and all the shellfish — langoustines in their shells, mussels in the half-shell, scallops, shrimp — in abundant layers. Ladle the sauce over the assembly. Distribute the blanched julienned leek across the surface so that its green shows clearly against the ivory sauce. Bring the marmite to the table unbroken.