Name: Court Bouillon
Ingredients: 4 ounces carrots, chopped; 4 ounces onions, chopped; 1 ounce parsley, chopped; 1 teaspoon thyme; 1 teaspoon basil; 1 ounce butter; 1 ounce coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); 2 quarts water; ½ pint vinegar

Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Court Bouillon

Ingredients

Directions

Melt the butter in a stewpan and add the carrots, onions, parsley, thyme, basil, and salt.
Stir over medium heat for a few minutes.
Add the water and vinegar, then bring to a simmer.
Simmer for one hour.
Strain the mixture and keep it until required.

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.

Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,057 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,053 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,768 recipes

Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).
Parsley + basiltop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,351 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4,563 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Carrots: Add sweetness and body to the broth as they soften during simmering.
Onions: Contribute savory depth and aroma as they soften and release their flavor.
Butter: Carries the aromatics' flavor and adds richness at the start of cooking.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the broth and helps draw flavor out of the vegetables.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, parsley, thyme, basil, butter, vinegar):

Shallotfits better
Parsnipfits better
Capsicumfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, parsley, thyme, basil, butter, vinegar. 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.