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Shrewsbury Court-bouillon

A Shrewsbury court-bouillon is a fish stock with clams, tomatoes, sea biscuits, and herbs, simmered for 45 minutes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,377 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Shrewsbury Court-bouillon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. In a pot, fry the chopped onions in butter or drippings until golden.

  2. Layer the fish, free from bones, over the onions.

  3. Sprinkle the sweet pepper, celery, parsley, spices, salt, and pepper over the fish.

  4. Add the clams, tomatoes, and broken sea biscuits in layers.

  5. Pour in the strained clam juice and add cold water to cover the fish.

Stew and thicken

  1. Stew gently for 45 minutes.

  2. Remove solids with a strainer to a deep dish, leaving the sauce in the pot.

  3. Add red wine and a mixture of corn starch or flour with cold water to the sauce.

  4. Boil the sauce for 3 to 4 minutes, stirring frequently.

Serve

  1. Serve the court-bouillon in a deep dish with a cover.

  2. Strain some sauce over it and serve the remaining sauce in a sauceboat.

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. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Red wine + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Onion + biscuittop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together428 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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

Onions
Soften and sweeten as they fry, building the flavour base of the broth.
Fish
Flakes into the broth, releasing flavour and body into the sauce as it stews.
Clams
Add briny, savoury flavour to the broth and sauce as they cook.
Sea biscuits
Break down during stewing and help thicken the broth.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the finished sauce.
Corn starch or flour (in the method)
Thickens the sauce when boiled with cold water as a slurry.

The step that matters

Boiling the thickened sauce. Starch must be fully boiled to swell and thicken properly; stirring frequently prevents scorching and lumps on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, red wine, fish, butter, clam, tomato, biscuit):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, red wine, fish, butter, clam, tomato, biscuit. 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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