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Fish Cullis

A stew of pike, egg yolks, almonds, and vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 165 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Fish Cullis

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish paste

  1. Pound the fish flesh, egg yolks, and almonds together in a mortar with some butter.

Make the cullis

  1. In a stewpan, melt butter and brown the sliced onions, parsnips, and carrots.

  2. Add a little stock to moisten the vegetables and cook for a few minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture into another saucepan and add leek, parsley, basil, cloves, mushrooms, truffles, and bread crumbs.

  4. Stew gently for 15 minutes, then add the fish mixture from the mortar.

  5. Let it stew longer without boiling, then strain 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. Parsnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Parsnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  4. Parsnip + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together484 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Pike
Forms the main body of the cullis, giving it a soft, savoury base once pounded and cooked.
Hard-boiled eggs
Egg yolks add richness and help bind the pounded fish into a smooth paste.
Onions
Browned in butter, they add sweetness and deep savoury flavour to the base.
Carrots
Browned with the onions, they add sweetness and body to the vegetable base.
Parsnips
Browned with the onions, they add sweetness and body to the vegetable base.
Mushrooms
Add earthy savoury flavour and aroma to the finished cullis.

The step that matters

Stew without boiling, then strain. Boiling a fish and egg mixture can cause proteins to tighten and curdle, leaving a grainy texture. Gentle heat keeps it smooth before the fine sieve removes remaining solids.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, onion, parsnip, carrot, leek, parsley):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Almondthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, onion, parsnip, carrot, leek, 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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