Instructions: Fry garlic, carrots, onion, and leeks or shallots in olive oil very slowly for 15 minutes. Add a sprig of thyme and a bay leaf. Put in fish and fry gently for 3 minutes. Heat cognac, pour it over fish and vegetables, light it, and let flames die. Pour in 10 cups water, let it come to a boil over fairly high flame and boil slowly for 15 minutes. While it boils, open the mussels in a saucepan over moderate heat with a little water. Strain juice through a kitchen towel and add it to the fish and vegetables.

Remove mussels from shell and set aside. Cut or tear the white part of three slices of bread into small bits. Strain the soup into another saucepan, add the bits of bread, and cook it in the soup 10 minutes more. Separate all the fish meat from the bones. Strain the soup a second time, forcing undissolved bits of bread through strainer. Season with salt and pepper. Simmer fish meat and shelled mussels in the soup for 5 minutes before serving; add butter just before removing from fire, stir to mix, and serve very hot.

Comments: The quality of fish soup depends on the quality of the fish. The above way of preparing it is Basque, but the kind of fish used can be varied according to what is locally available. You might use a head of hake, some crabs, and a few crayfish. Or you might use, as suggested above, mussels, rockfish, and sea bass. All fish and shellfish must be cleaned, but the heads, bones, and shelfish carcasses (all of which are strained out afterward) are cooked in the soup to give it flavor.

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