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Stock for Fish Soupe-Maigre

A light fish stock made with skate, flounder, eel, onion, celery, parsley roots, sweet herbs, mace, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stock for Fish Soupe-Maigre

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the fish and cut them into pieces.

Make the stock

  1. Cover the fish with water and season with mace, pepper, salt, onion, celery, parsley roots, and sweet herbs.

  2. Simmer for 1 hour, closely covered.

  3. Strain the stock for use.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Skate
Fish bones and flesh give the stock its body and savory flavor.
Flounders
Adds delicate fish flavor and gelatin from the bones to the stock.
Eels
Contribute rich body and depth of flavor to the stock.
Celery
Adds a fresh, aromatic vegetable flavor to the broth.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savory aroma as it cooks in the liquid.

The step that matters

Simmer gently with the lid on. A gentle simmer extracts flavor without clouding the stock, while a hard boil can break up the fish and make the liquid cloudy and greasy. Keeping the pot closely covered limits evaporation so the stock stays flavorful.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, pepper, onion, clove, celery, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pepper, onion, clove, celery, 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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