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Couet Bouillon

A clear vegetable broth made with carrot, onion, celery, parsley, peppercorns, bay leaf, salt, butter, vinegar, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Couet Bouillon

Ingredients

Directions

Start the base

  1. In a large pot, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the carrot, onion, celery, and parsley; cook for 3 minutes.

Make the broth

  1. Stir in the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  5. Garlic + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Carrot
Adds sweetness and body as its flavor releases into the broth.
Onion
Builds savory depth and aroma as it softens in the fat.
Celery
Contributes a fresh, herbal aroma to the vegetable base.
Butter
Carries the aromatic flavors from the vegetables and adds richness.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that mellows as it cooks in the broth.
Vinegar
Adds mild acidity that brightens the finished broth.

The step that matters

Cook the vegetables gently in the butter. Softening the vegetables over medium heat releases their sweetness and aroma without browning. Browning would darken the broth and can make its flavor harsher or more bitter.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, onion, celery, garlic, parsley, butter, vinegar):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, celery, garlic, parsley, butter, vinegar. 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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