Skip to main content
Main

Bouillon Maigre De Poisson

A light fish broth made with eel, tench, carp, pike, carrots, onions, leeks, celery, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Bouillon Maigre De Poisson

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grease the bottom of a medium saucepan with butter.

  2. Cover the bottom with onion rings.

  3. Add the eel, tench, carp, and pike pieces on top.

  4. Add the chopped carrots, onions, and the bouquet of leeks and celery.

  5. Pour in enough water to cover the fish.

Cook the broth

  1. Place the saucepan over high heat to speed up the reduction.

  2. Once boiling, cover with ashes to lightly color the broth.

  3. Add boiling water to the mixture.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and cloves.

  5. After two hours of boiling, strain the broth through a fine sieve.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Leek + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Eel
Adds rich fish flavor and body to the broth as it cooks.
Tench
Contributes fish flavor and body to the broth.
Carp
Contributes fish flavor and body to the broth.
Pike
Contributes fish flavor and body to the broth.
Carrots
Add sweetness and aroma to the broth.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Cover with ashes once boiling. Ashes lightly color the broth, and the timing matters: adding them only after boiling starts keeps the color even and controlled rather than overly dark or smoky.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, carrot, leek, celery, fish, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, carrot, leek, celery, fish, pepper. 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.

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesFried FishFried Fish120 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesFish CroquettesFish Croquettes81 recipes