Skip to main content
Main

Fish-Broth a LA Duclair

A fish broth made with pike and eel fillets, fish heads, bones, and parings, simmered with wine, water, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fish-Broth a LA Duclair

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove the skin from the pike and eel fillets.

  2. Cut the fillets into slices and flatten the slices slightly.

  3. Arrange the fillets in a buttered sauté pan and season them with salt, white pepper, and a pinch of red pepper.

Make the broth

  1. Combine fish heads, bones, parings, salt, peppercorns, mace, onion, and parsley in a stewpan.

  2. Moisten the stewpan with white wine, water, and white broth and boil the mixture.

  3. Cover and cook for 1 hour.

  4. Strain the broth and clarify it with egg whites, then strain the clarified broth through a wet napkin.

Finish and serve

  1. Moisten the fillets with two ladlefuls of broth and boil and simmer the fillets for 10 minutes.

  2. Place the fillets in a soup tureen with crusts of two buttered French rolls cut into small rounds.

  3. Pour the boiling broth over the fillets and serve the dish.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  3. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Onion + white winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,535 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

Pike fillets
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender and flaky when gently simmered.
Eel fillet
Adds richness and a firmer texture to the fish pieces.
Egg whites
Trap particles as they set, clarifying the broth into a clear liquid.
French rolls
Soak up broth at the base of the tureen, giving a softer, absorbent texture.
Butter
Adds richness and keeps the fillets from sticking to the pan.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the broth as it simmers with the fish trimmings.

The step that matters

Clarifying the broth with egg whites. Egg whites coagulate as they heat, trapping cloudy particles so they can be strained out. If the broth is stirred or boils hard while the whites set, the particles disperse and the broth stays cloudy.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, fish, mace, onion, parsley, white wine, egg):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, fish, mace, onion, parsley, white wine, egg. 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

Fried FishFried Fish120 recipesFish CroquettesFish Croquettes81 recipesScalloped CodScalloped Cod69 recipesBroiled FishBroiled Fish68 recipes