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Bouillabaisse

Bouillabaisse is a Provençal fish soup made with assorted fish, onions, herbs, and saffron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 ↓

Bouillabaisse

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Cut the fish into long pieces or fillets.

Make the soup

  1. In a saucepan, combine all ingredients except the saffron.

  2. Cover the pan and boil for 25 minutes.

  3. If using whiting, add them after the other ingredients have boiled for 15 minutes.

  4. Remove the fish and drain carefully, removing any particles from the soup.

  5. Strain the soup, add the saffron, and pour into a tureen.

Serve

  1. Arrange the fish on a dish covered with a napkin.

  2. Serve the fish alongside the soup with fried bread cut into ⅓ inch thick slices.

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. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  5. Thyme + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Assorted fish
Provides the main body of the dish, flavouring the broth as it cooks.
Onions
Build the aromatic base that gives the broth its sweetness and depth.
Oil
Carries fat-soluble flavour compounds and adds richness to the broth.
Saffron
Adds colour and a distinctive aroma to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Adding the whiting at the right time. Whiting is delicate and breaks apart if cooked as long as the sturdier fish. Adding it after 15 minutes lets it cook gently while the broth is already flavoured, keeping the pieces intact.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, parsley, thyme, garlic, shallot, carrot, fish):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, parsley, thyme, garlic, shallot, carrot, fish. 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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