Skip to main content
Main

Bouillabaisse

A French fish stew made with various fish, mussels, onions, tomatoes, carrots, herbs, and citrus.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Whiting and haddock match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 103 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Bouillabaisse

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and slice the fish, removing bones.

  2. Add the mussels to the fish.

  3. In a stewpan, combine the sliced onions, peeled tomatoes, and sliced carrot.

  4. In a coarse net bag, place the bay leaves, lemon slices, orange zest, cloves, thyme, and parsley.

Cook

  1. Add the bag to the stewpan with the fish and mussels, and cook until done.

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. Whiting + haddocktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together103 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Carrot + orangetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together737 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Provides the main body and flavor of the broth as it cooks down.
Mussels
Add briny, savory flavor to the broth as their shells open during cooking.
Onions
Build a sweet, aromatic base for the broth.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body to the broth.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, whiting, haddock, onion, tomato, carrot, lemon):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Orangethe original
  3. Avocadofits less well
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, whiting, haddock, onion, tomato, carrot, lemon. 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

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesFried FishFried Fish120 recipes