Skip to main content
Main

New Orleans Court Bouillon

A fish soup made with tomatoes, onions, claret wine, herbs, and slices of fish served over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Jacqueline Harrison Smith (ed.) · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

New Orleans Court Bouillon

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Fry 3 chopped onions in a tablespoon of butter.

  2. Add a cup of tomatoes, 3 or 4 whole cloves, pepper, salt, and toast to the onions.

  3. Let the mixture stew together for 30 minutes.

  4. Add 1 tablespoon flour and about ½ pint of claret to the stew.

  5. Let it boil, stirring constantly, for 5 minutes until the flour is thoroughly cooked.

  6. Strain the sauce and return it to the fire in a saucepan.

Cook the fish and serve

  1. Lay slices of fish in the sauce and let them simmer gently until cooked, about 6 to 10 minutes depending on thickness.

  2. Prepare a deep dish with slices of toast enough to cover the bottom.

  3. When the fish is done, lay the slices of fish on the toast.

  4. Add the remaining 1 pint of claret to the sauce and pour it over the fish.

  5. The Court Bouillon is ready to serve.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

773Calories
26 gProtein
7 gFat
150 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 9 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Potato1 medium (173g) baked161
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Tomato1 medium (123g)22
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Saucenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Jacqueline Harrison Smith (ed.). Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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 + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Thickens the sauce as it boils and cooks through.
Claret
Adds liquid and wine flavour to the sauce.
Onions
Build the flavour base of the sauce when fried in butter.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boiling the flour and claret mixture. Flour must be stirred constantly and boiled for the full five minutes so it cooks through; otherwise it keeps a raw, pasty taste and fails to thicken the sauce smoothly.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sauce, butter, tomato, onion, potato, egg):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sauce, butter, tomato, onion, potato, egg. 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.

More court bouillon recipes

Fish in 5New Orleans 4 See all 10 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipes