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Fish Stock

A clear broth made by simmering fish trimmings, peppercorns, mace, onion, celery, and salt in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,518 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Fish Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Thoroughly cleanse the fish trimmings.

  2. Place the cleaned trimmings in a saucepan with the cold water and salt.

  3. Bring the mixture slowly to a boil.

  4. Skim the surface thoroughly.

Simmer and strain

  1. Add the peppercorns, celery, and mace.

  2. Allow the stock to simmer for 40 minutes.

  3. Strain the stock through a fine sieve.

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. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Mace + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  3. Mace + celerytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Fish + oniontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,924 recipes

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

  5. Fish + celerytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together353 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish trimmings
Provide the main flavour base of the stock as they simmer in the water.
Onion
Adds subtle sweetness and aroma to the stock.
Celery
Adds aromatic depth to the stock's overall flavour.

The step that matters

Skim the surface thoroughly. Skimming removes coagulated proteins and impurities that rise as the liquid heats. Removing them keeps the stock clear and prevents off, cloudy flavours from developing during simmering.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, onion, celery):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, onion, celery. 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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