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Fish-glaze

A glaze made by simmering fish bones with vegetables, wine or vinegar, clarified with egg whites and caramel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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-glaze

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Chop the fish bones and cuttings into small pieces and place them in a stew-pan.

  2. Cover with 5 pints of water and 1 pint of wine or vinegar.

  3. Bring to a boil, skimming the surface as needed.

  4. Add the chopped vegetables, bouquet garni, and seasonings.

  5. Boil once, then simmer for 1.5 hours.

Clarify and reduce

  1. Strain the broth and cool it, removing any fat or scum.

  2. Color the broth with caramel and clarify using the egg whites and shells.

  3. Strain again and boil down to a glaze.

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. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fish bones and cuttings
Provide the main gelatin and flavor that give the glaze body and savor.
Egg whites and shells
Bind fine particles and impurities so they can be strained out, leaving a clear broth.
Chablis or vinegar
Adds acidity that helps draw flavor and minerals from the bones into the broth.
Caramel
Adds color to the finished glaze.

The step that matters

Skimming and clarifying. Skimming during the first boil removes foam and impurities that would cloud the broth. Clarifying with egg whites traps remaining fine particles, so the glaze stays clear and clean-tasting when reduced.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (haddock, vinegar, turnip, carrot, celery, parsley, pepper):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, vinegar, turnip, carrot, celery, parsley, 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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