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Fish Broth

A clear broth made from boiled fish, vegetables, and seasonings, finished with oysters and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Fish Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Save the water from boiling the large fish and add the scraps.

  2. Simmer until reduced to 1 quart.

  3. Strain the broth and add the sliced potatoes, carrot, leek, parsley, and bay leaf.

  4. Simmer for 30 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the oysters, sherry, hot white stock, pepper, and salt.

  2. Cook gently for 10 more minutes or until the oysters are done.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Leek + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together759 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down slightly during simmering to give the broth body and thickness.
Oysters
Add briny, savoury flavour and tender texture when cooked gently at the end.
Leek
Contributes mild onion-like sweetness and aroma to the broth.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness and colour to the broth.

The step that matters

Cook the oysters gently. Oysters toughen and shrink when boiled hard or overcooked. Adding them late and simmering gently keeps them tender and juicy.

Swap the leek

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, potato, carrot, parsley, oyster, sherry, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Parsnipfits about as well
  4. Leekthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, potato, carrot, parsley, oyster, sherry, pepper. 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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