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Stock for Fish Soup

A stock made by simmering flounder, perch, veal broth, ham, carrots, celery, onions, herbs, salt, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Stock for Fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Gut and clean the fish carefully.

Make the stock

  1. Place the fish in a stewpan with the veal broth.

  2. Add the ham, carrots, celery, onions, sweet herbs, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Stew until the fish can pass through a coarse 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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Flounders or small flat fish
Provide the main body of flavor and gelatin that gives the stock its body.
Perch
Add more fish flesh, which breaks down during stewing to enrich the stock.
Veal broth
Serves as the liquid base, carrying flavor from the fish and vegetables.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and aromatic depth to the stock.

The step that matters

Stew until the fish can pass through a coarse sieve. Stewing long enough breaks the fish down fully so its flesh and bones release flavor and gelatin into the broth. Stopping too early leaves the stock thin and weakly flavored.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, veal, ham, carrot, celery, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Turnipfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, veal, ham, carrot, celery, pepper. 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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