Recipe for fish soup

1 kg of rock fish - 24 small crabs - 1 cup of olive oil - 2 crushed cloves of garlic - 2 tomatoes - 1 white onion - 1 leek (only use the whites) - fennel – savoury - laurel - saffron - salt - pepper

Pour 5 tablespoons of olive oil into a stewpot, and brown the white of the leek and the chopped onion, the two cloves of garlic, the crushed tomatoes, 1 fennel sprig, some savoury and 1 laurel leaf. Brown slightly.

Add the fish and the small crabs. Season with salt and pepper, simmer gently until the fish start to colour. Add 2 litres of water and bring to the boil for 15 mn. Remove the crabs and strain the fish through a colander or a passe-purée.

Put the purée thus obtained in the pot and complete the seasoning (which must be hot). Add 3 pinches of saffron and bring to the boil.

Serve very hot with croûtons rubbed with a peeled clove of garlic, grated cheese and rouille (see recipe)