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Fish Stock, Brown

A brown fish stock made by browning skate, flounder, and eels with butter, then simmering with vegetables and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Fish Stock, Brown

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large pot, fry the pieces of skate, flounder, and eels in butter until rich brown.

  2. Cover the fish with water and add the onion, carrots, turnips, celery, salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  3. Bring to a boil and simmer until the stock thickens to a jelly consistency, about 2 hours.

  4. Strain the stock for use.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Skate
Provides the main fish body and gelatin that helps the stock thicken to a jelly-like texture.
Flounder
Adds fish flavor and body to the stock as it simmers.
Eels
Adds richness and body to the stock, contributing to its thick texture.
Butter
Browns the fish during frying, building deeper roasted flavor in the stock.
Carrots
Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the stock.
Turnips
Contribute mild sweetness and earthy flavor to the stock.

The step that matters

Frying the fish until rich brown. Browning the fish in butter creates Maillard reactions that give the stock its deep, roasted flavor and color. Pale frying produces a flatter, less complex stock.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, clove, carrot, turnip, celery, pepper, nutmeg):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, clove, carrot, turnip, celery, pepper, nutmeg. 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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