Skip to main content
Soup

Bouillabaisse

A mixed-fish stew of onions, herbs, olive oil and saffron, boiled in water and served as a soup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Bouillabaisse

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine the fish, onions, carrot, shallots, garlic, thyme, parsley, cloves, bay leaves, ground red pepper, olive oil, salt, and pepper in a saucepan.

  2. Pour in the water and cover the saucepan with a lid.

  3. Gently boil for 30 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Drain the fish and arrange it on a hot dish.

  2. Mix the saffron with the soup, then strain the soup into a soup tureen.

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 + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Garlic + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,608 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Provides the body and flavour of the broth as it cooks down, and forms the serving centrepiece.
Olive oil
Carries fat-soluble flavours from the aromatics and adds richness to the broth.
Onions
Release sweetness and savoury depth as they soften in the broth.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that mellows during gentle simmering.
Saffron
Gives the soup its golden colour and a distinctive floral aroma.

The step that matters

Gently boil for 30 minutes. A gentle simmer keeps the delicate fish intact and prevents it from breaking apart, while still extracting flavour into the broth. A hard, rapid boil would toughen the fish and cloud the soup.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, whiting, onion, carrot, shallot, garlic, thyme):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, whiting, onion, carrot, shallot, garlic, thyme. 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.

You might also like

Indian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and SpinachIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and Spinach448 recipesClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd SoupClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd Soup65 recipesMock Bisque SoupMock Bisque Soup51 recipesCream of Asparagus SoupCream of Asparagus Soup42 recipes