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Bouillabaisse — Marseillaise or Provengal Fish Soup

A fish soup made with assorted fish, shrimp shells, vegetables, herbs, wine, and thickened with arrowroot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,601 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Bouillabaisse — Marseillaise or Provengal Fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Separate the fish into flakes or cut into neat pieces and set aside.

  2. Boil shrimp shells in water for 20 minutes, then strain the liquid and let it settle.

Make the broth

  1. Brown sliced carrot and onion in butter with a dust of flour until tender.

  2. Gradually dilute with water or broth, adding the clear shrimp shell liquid.

  3. Season with sugar, herbs, white wine, and nutmeg or cloves.

  4. Thicken with arrowroot, boil while stirring, and strain through a colander.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the picked shrimps and pieces of fish, heating through without boiling.

  2. Serve with toast-dice.

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. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Shrimp + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,931 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  3. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Fish + shrimptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together252 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Provides the main body of the dish, cooking gently into tender flakes in the broth.
Butter
Carries the flavour of the vegetables and adds richness as the aromatics brown.
Flour
Lightly coats the vegetables during browning, helping to start thickening the broth.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the broth.
Arrowroot
Thickens the broth into a smooth, lightly body-giving liquid when boiled with stirring.
Shrimp shells
Release savoury shellfish flavour into the water, giving the broth its seafood character.

The step that matters

Heating the fish without boiling. Boiling the broth once the fish is added toughens fish proteins and breaks up delicate flakes, so the fish should be heated gently until just cooked through.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, whiting, shrimp, butter, onion, flour, sugar):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, whiting, shrimp, butter, onion, flour, sugar. 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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