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Grand Bouillon Maigre a LA Laguipierre

A large lean broth made with peas, root vegetables, celery, leeks, water, spices, and fish, simmered overnight and finished with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Grand Bouillon Maigre a LA Laguipierre

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the base broth

  1. Place a large pot over heat and add 4 liters of dried peas, 3 bunches each of carrots, turnips, and onions, 1 bunch of celery, 1 bunch of leeks, 12 liters of water, salt, white pepper, nutmeg, and cloves.

  2. When the mixture boils, move the pot to a corner of the hearth on a bed of hot ashes, adding more firewood and a few shovels of coal.

  3. Cover the pot with red ashes to keep a gentle simmer overnight.

Build the fish sauce

  1. In the morning, prepare a large buttered saucepan and add 5 or 6 chopped onions.

  2. Add 2 carp, 2 tench, and 2 pike, cut into pieces, and 2 large spoonfuls of the broth from the pot.

  3. Cook the fish over moderate heat until reduced, then cover with ashes to let the sauce color gradually.

  4. When the sauce turns light blonde, strain in the broth from the large pot.

  5. Bring the mixture to a boil, then remove from heat and let the broth simmer for 2 hours before straining.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Dried peas
Thickens the broth and gives it body as they break down during long simmering.
Carrots
Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth.
Onions
Add sweetness and browning flavor to the broth and sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the onions and sauce color gently.
Leeks
Add a mild, sweet onion-like aroma to the broth.
Pike (in the method)
Provides the main fish flavor and body to the sauce as it reduces.

The step that matters

Keeping the overnight simmer gentle. A rolling boil over long cooking can cloud the broth and break down the peas unevenly. A slow, steady simmer under ashes extracts flavor gradually and keeps the liquid clear.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, carrot, turnip, onion, celery, leek, nutmeg):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, carrot, turnip, onion, celery, leek, nutmeg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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