A comforting stew of creativity and tradition

The bouillabaisse at Bistro 712 in Norwood contains the essentials - and a surprise. (Wendy Maeda/Globe Staff)

It may not have the comfort factor of mashed potatoes or mac and cheese, but there's plenty of nostalgia associated with bouillabaisse, one of France's great seafood dishes. "Bouillabaisse has the power to conjure up memories," says Keith Pooler, chef at Left Bank at the Stonehedge Inn in Tyngsborough. "It certainly does for me."

And it's true: Dip your spoon into a bowl of this hearty stew, taste the fresh fish and shellfish in the rich, fragrant broth, and it can transport you to another place - maybe not your grandmother's kitchen, but to a favorite cafe in Paris or Provence. Timeless dishes can have this effect.

Lately many French restaurants, bistros especially, are turning to traditional fare such as duck confit, steak au poivre, mussels, frisée and lardon salad - and bouillabaisse, the stew that is said to have originated at the port of Marseille in the south of France. "I think there is a certain level of comfort in eating an old familiar dish," says Pooler.

Although bouillabaisse is a classic, there's no standard recipe, so you can use the abundance of seafood in this region and produce a fine dish. "You can adapt, modify, and change some of the minor ingredients just as long as people can identify with it," says Pooler. "It is a sense of security."

In France, taste and flavors in bouillabaisse vary by cook and region, and that notion seems to have been transported with the dish. In fact, sometimes a cook is judged by his or her bouillabaisse. As Pooler says, it "can determine if a chef can cook well or not because you can compare it to other chefs' versions or even to your grandmother's recipe." Yet almost all renditions contain common elements, such as fish broth, white wine, and whatever seafood is fresh at the market. The Marseille Bouillabaisse Charter, signed by several restaurants in Marseille, dictates what seafood can be included and what ingredients follow tradition; these (such as scorpion fish) aren't necessarily available to us, so taking liberties is a must. Even chefs in other areas of France don't adhere to the stringent guidelines.

Implementing both tradition - though not adhering to the charter - and his own creativity is Sean Canney, chef at Bistro 712 in Norwood. "You don't get a lot of places that do classic French dishes, so the bouillabaisse is very popular," says the chef. His version comes with the essentials: fresh seafood - in this case, shrimp, clams, mussels, baby scallops, calamari, and salmon - fish broth, white wine, potatoes, and a crouton with rouille, a spicy mayonnaise, which Canney says "makes the bouillabaisse." He also adds tarragon, giving the broth a definitive and surprising licorice flavor.

At Left Bank, where Pooler serves bouillabaisse during fall and winter, the dish is distinctly different. It contains orange rind, saffron, and tomato. Homemade mayonnaise, which he thickens with chicken stock, gives the broth a creamy texture without adding cream, a trick he learned at the Culinary Institute of America. For seafood, Pooler uses whitefish, mussels, and shrimp.

Most bouillabaisse preparations share a common cooking technique: a very gentle simmer in which the liquid is cooked just below boiling level. In fact, according to the Oxford French Dictionary, "bouiller" means to boil, and "baisser" means to reduce. Robert Morotto of Aquitaine, a Paris-inspired bistro in the South End, says that preparing the base is the most important aspect of the recipe. "The liquid takes a lot of time to simmer. There are a variety of flavors to combine," he says.

Morotto enjoys traditional French cuisine, and his bouillabaisse, filled with loup de mer (sea bass), mussels, and shrimp, is flavored with Pernod. It's a plat du jour on Saturday nights, when it flies out of the kitchen.

"It's one of those dishes that represents classic cuisine," says Morotto, "and we get a lot of great responses about it."