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Bouillabaisse

Bouillabaisse is a fish soup made with carp, perch, whiting, gurnet, mussels, onions, lemon, saffron, and parsley root.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Bouillabaisse

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Wash, scale and clean the fish.

  2. Cut the fish into nice pieces.

  3. Place the fish pieces in a saucepan.

  4. Add the shelled mussels.

Make the broth

  1. Pour salad oil gradually.

  2. Add the onions with cloves stuck in them.

  3. Add the bay leaf.

  4. Add the lemon slices.

  5. Add salt.

  6. Add pepper.

  7. Pour cold water or fish stock over the fish until covered.

  8. Add the white wine.

  9. Add powdered saffron.

  10. Boil on a brisk fire for 15 minutes.

  11. Add the scraped parsley root.

  12. Boil quickly.

Serve

  1. Soak slices of bread in the soup.

  2. Place the soaked bread in a deep dish.

  3. Pour the soup through a sieve.

  4. Arrange the fish nicely in 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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Lemon + saffrontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together538 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Saffron + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Saffron
Gives the broth its characteristic golden colour and distinctive aroma.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the broth.
Onions
Release sweetness and flavour into the broth as they cook.
Mussels
Contribute briny, savoury flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

Boil on a brisk fire for 15 minutes. Vigorous boiling emulsifies the oil and extracts flavour from the fish and aromatics, but over-boiling can break the delicate fish pieces apart and make the broth cloudy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (whiting, lemon, pepper, fish, white wine, saffron, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against whiting, lemon, pepper, fish, white wine, saffron, parsley. 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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