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Fish Stock

A clear broth made by simmering fish trimmings, water, salt, peppercorns, onion, celery, and bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,518 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Fish Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Thoroughly cleanse the fish trimmings.

  2. Put the trimmings into a saucepan with cold water and salt.

Simmer and strain

  1. Bring slowly to a boil, then add celery, onion, and peppercorns.

  2. Simmer for one hour, then strain the stock.

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 + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

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

  4. Celery + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,110 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fish trimmings
Provide the main flavor and body of the stock.
Cold water
Serves as the liquid that extracts flavor from the fish and aromatics.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the stock.
Celery
Contributes aromatic, savory background flavor to the stock.

The step that matters

Bring slowly to a boil. Starting with cold water and heating gently lets flavor move out of the fish gradually. Boiling hard too early can cloud the stock and make it greasy, so keep it below a rolling boil and skim as needed.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, onion, bread. 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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