Skip to main content
Main

Small Fish in Bouillon

A broth made by simmering small fish, fish heads, onions, juniper berries, white pepper, and red pepper in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Small Fish in Bouillon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the fish, reserving the heads and trimmings.

Make the bouillon

  1. In a kettle, combine 10 gallons of fish heads and trimmings with 12 gallons of cold water.

  2. Add 2 lbs of chopped onions, ¼ lb of whole juniper berries, ½ lb of white pepper, and 2 oz of ground red pepper.

  3. Bring to a boil, then simmer gently for 1 to 2 hours.

  4. Strain off the liquid and add 3% salt.

Pack and fill

  1. Pack the fish in cans and fill with bouillon.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. White pepper + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  3. Fish + oniontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,924 recipes

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

  4. Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,948 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Onion + white peppertop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish heads and trimmings
Provide the main flavour and body of the bouillon as they simmer in water.
Chopped onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the simmering liquid.
Whole juniper berries
Contribute a resinous, aromatic note to the bouillon.
White pepper
Adds gentle, earthy heat to the broth.
Ground red pepper
Adds sharp heat that carries through the simmered liquid.

The step that matters

Simmering gently after the boil. A rolling boil can cloud the broth and make it taste harsh, while gentle simmering extracts flavour from the fish and aromatics more cleanly. Keeping the heat low for the full 1 to 2 hours matters for a clear, balanced bouillon.

Swap the white pepper

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, onion, 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

Fried FishFried Fish120 recipesFish CroquettesFish Croquettes81 recipesScalloped CodScalloped Cod69 recipesBroiled FishBroiled Fish68 recipes