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Bouchées À LA Dauphine

A French fish dish of minced whiting fillets mixed with broth, butter, bread, eggs, and herbs, then shaped into small bites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 6,805 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare the fish stock

  1. Order a sixpenny whiting and have it sent home whole.

  2. Remove the flesh from each side to create two fillets and set aside.

  3. Chop the head, bones, and skin, and place them in a stewpan.

  4. Add ½ pint of cold milk and ½ pint of water to the stewpan, then season with salt and pepper.

  5. Bring the mixture to a boil over low heat.

  6. Add minced onion, celery, parsley, and dried herbs to the boiling broth.

  7. Simmer for 45 minutes.

  8. Strain the broth.

  9. In a saucepan, boil the strained broth.

  10. Add the fillets to the boiling broth and reduce to a simmer.

  11. Once the fillets are soft, remove them and pound in a mortar to a paste.

Make the mixture

  1. For 6 ounces of whiting, mix the paste with 2 ounces of butter or fat and 2 ounces of bread panada.

  2. Pass the mixture through a wire sieve.

  3. Add 2 whole eggs and 1 egg yolk to the sieved mixture.

  4. Beat well, season, and add 1 tablespoon of cream.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Celery + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,805 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,118 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Butter + breadtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,145 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Pepper + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together16,001 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Milk + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together81,222 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Whiting
Provides the fish flesh that forms the body and flavour of the mixture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set it when cooked, giving structure and a light texture.
Butter or fat from cooked ham
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the mixture tender.
Bread panada
Adds body and moisture, helping the paste hold together and stay soft.

The step that matters

Simmering the fillets until soft. Overcooking makes the fish tough and dry, while underpoaching leaves it firm and hard to pound into a smooth paste that binds well with the eggs.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (whiting, milk, pepper, celery, parsley, butter, bread):

  1. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  2. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  3. Potatobetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against whiting, milk, pepper, celery, parsley, butter, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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