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Court-bouillon En Gras a LA Laguifierre

A fat court-bouillon made with carrots, onions, butter, herbs, wine, and consommé, strained and poured over fish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Court-bouillon En Gras a LA Laguifierre

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 court bouillon

  1. In a medium saucepan, combine the sliced carrots and onions with the butter, parsley, bay leaves, thyme, basil, garlic, mace, cloves, and white pepper.

  2. Add the red wine and consommé, then cover the saucepan.

  3. Place it over high heat and bring to a boil.

  4. Once boiling, reduce the heat and let it simmer gently for 1 hour.

Strain and serve

  1. Strain the mixture through a fine cloth and pour the hot court-bouillon over the fish in a fish poacher.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  4. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Parsley + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying the aromatics' flavour and giving the broth a rounded mouthfeel.
Red wine
Provides acidity and tannin-based depth, extracting and balancing the flavours of the vegetables and herbs.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and body to the broth as they soften during simmering.
Onions
Release sugars and savoury depth as they cook slowly, building the broth's base flavour.

The step that matters

Simmering gently after boiling. Once the liquid reaches a boil, lowering the heat to a gentle simmer keeps it from churning and clouding, and lets flavours extract evenly over the hour.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, butter, parsley, thyme, basil, clove, garlic):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, butter, parsley, thyme, basil, clove, garlic. 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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