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Grosse Truite Au Court Bouillon

A large trout cooked in a short broth with onions, butter, flour, spices, and Port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Grosse Truite Au Court Bouillon

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. In a pot, melt the butter over low heat.

  2. Add the sliced onions and cook until softened.

  3. Stir in the flour and spices, mixing well.

  4. Add the trout pieces and enough water to cover them.

  5. Simmer for one hour until the trout is cooked through.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, add the Port wine and stir gently.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + port winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + port winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,148 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Trout
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender as it simmers in the broth.
Onions
Soften during cooking, adding sweetness and a savory aroma to the broth.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the flavor of the onions into the broth.
Flour
Thickens the broth so it becomes body-rich instead of thin.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavor to the finished broth.

The step that matters

Adding the Port wine. Port is added just before serving because prolonged heat drives off its alcohol and delicate aromas. Stirring gently keeps the trout pieces intact while the wine blends in.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, port wine):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, port wine. 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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