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Soup

Fish Stock

A clear fish stock made by boiling fish bones, clarified with egg whites, and strained through a flannel bag.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,782 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Fish Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Boil fish in just enough water to cover it.

  2. Add a little coarse sea salt to harden the fish.

  3. Let the broth cool to form a jelly.

  4. Melt the jellied stock and heat until steaming, but not boiling.

Clarify and strain

  1. Beat the whites of 2 eggs with the washed and crushed shells.

  2. Stir the egg mixture into the hot stock.

  3. Bring the stock to a boil.

  4. Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes.

  5. Strain the stock through a fine, thin, scalded flannel bag until clear.

  6. Keep the bag near the fire in cold weather to prevent the jelly from setting.

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. Fish + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,782 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish bones and remnants
Provide the flavour and gelatin that turn the broth into a jelly when chilled.
Whites of 2 eggs
Coagulate as they heat, trapping cloudy particles so the stock strains clear.
Crushed eggshells (washed)
Add fine particles and minerals that help bind impurities for clarifying the stock.

The step that matters

Strain the stock through the flannel bag until clear. The egg white and shell mixture must be heated and then left to coagulate before straining; if the stock is disturbed or strained too early, cloudy particles pass through and the stock stays murky.

“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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