Cooking with Pia: Fish Soup
You can make the veggies and broth a day ahead. The next day you just heat it up, add the fish, and serve. It’s so easy.
When I first made this, for my husband’s 40th birthday, we were living in Picton, Ontario. I had wanted to make a bouillabaisse, but I couldn’t find many of the ingredients, so I had to be inventive.
Use what is available – fish, seasonal veggies, water – to produce a delicious soup that allows the individual ingredients to shine. The recipe calls for salmon, halibut, sole, and scallops or mussels, but Pia urges cooks to substitute whatever looks freshest at their local fish counter.
The indisputable star of the dish is a spicy rouille, which combines the silkiness of homemade mayonnaise with the complex heat of sambal oelek, an Indonesian condiment available in most grocery stores. Any good quality mayo mixed with whatever hot sauce you have on hand will do.
Don’t fret use what you have.
Cooking with Pia: Fish Soup
Serves
4 - 6
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 onion, diced
- 1 red pepper, diced
- 1 orange pepper, diced
- 1 green pepper, diced
- 2 tomatoes, diced
- 1 zucchini, diced
- 2 medium-sized potatoes, peeled and cut into small cubes
- Salt and pepper
- Water to cover
- 1 fillet of salmon, cut into bite-sized pieces
- 2 fillets of sole, cut into bite-sized pieces
- 1 fillet of halibut, cut into bite-sized pieces
- 1 lb (½ kg) bay scallops (or mussels)
- 12 large shrimp
- 2 cups mayonnaise (homemade or good quality store-bought)
- 2 cloves garlic, crushed
- 2 tsp sambal oelek
- 1 cup cilantro, chopped
Instructions
- Heat oil in a large cast-iron pot. Add onions and sauté until transparent.
- Gradually add peppers, tomatoes and zucchini and sauté until tender-crisp.
- Add potatoes, salt and pepper. Stir.
- Add enough water to cover. Bring to a boil and simmer on medium-low heat until potatoes are tender.
- Prepare sauce by mixing mayonnaise, garlic, sambal oelek and cilantro in a bowl.
- Add fish fillets and shellfish. Bring to a boil and cook for 5 to 7 minutes or until mussels open. (Discard any mussels that do not open.)
- Serve with a dollop of sauce and lots of crusty French bread.
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