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Boiled Shad Au Court Bouillon

A fish stock made by boiling shad in a broth of onion, carrot, celery, and aromatics.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Boiled Shad Au Court Bouillon

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. In a pot, fry the chopped onion, carrot, and celery in beef drippings or butter.

  2. Pour in the boiling water and add vinegar or white wine.

  3. Season with mace, peppercorns, cloves, bay leaf, and salt.

  4. Boil for 30 minutes, then strain the stock.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook the shad in the hot liquid until done.

  2. Serve with butter or egg sauce, garnished with slices of hard-boiled eggs.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aromatic depth to the stock as it fries.
Carrot
Contributes subtle sweetness and body to the stock.
Celery
Adds aromatic, savory flavor to the stock base.
Beef drippings or butter
Carries the aromatics and adds fat and richness to the stock.
Vinegar or white wine
Adds acidity that brightens the stock and helps draw out flavor.

The step that matters

Cook the shad in the hot liquid until done. Fish proteins set quickly and turn dry and firm if overcooked. Holding the liquid at a gentle heat rather than a hard boil keeps the flesh moist and tender.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, carrot, celery, beef, vinegar, clove):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, carrot, celery, beef, vinegar, clove. 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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