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Bouillabaisse

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Whiting and turbot share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 33 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Bouillabaisse

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Make a roux by heating olive oil and frying flour until golden.

  2. Add chopped fish to the roux and fry until cooked.

  3. Pour in standard broth and bring to a boil for 30 minutes.

  4. Simmer until the fish is fully cooked.

  5. Serve the bouillon over fried bread in a tureen and the fish in a separate 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. Whiting + turbottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together33 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Olive + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

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

  3. Olive + breadtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,091 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. White wine + oniontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,535 recipes

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

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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, whiting, turbot, olive, white wine, flour, bread):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, whiting, turbot, olive, white wine, flour, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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