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Bouillabaisse

A fish stew with mussels, orange peel, onion, garlic, parsley, saffron, and wine, served with toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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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

Prepare

  1. In a stew-pan, combine the fish, mussels, orange peel, onion, bay leaf, garlic, parsley, saffron, pepper, salt, and white wine.

  2. Add enough water and olive oil to cover the ingredients.

Cook

  1. Bring to a brisk boil and simmer for 15-20 minutes.

Serve

  1. Toast or fry slices of bread.

  2. Pour the bouillabaisse over the bread and serve hot.

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. Parsley + saffrontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Orange + saffrontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together185 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Garlic + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 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
Its proteins firm and flake as they cook, giving the stew its substance and body.
Mussels
They release their briny juices into the broth, adding savory depth and sea flavor.
Onion
Softened during cooking, it adds sweetness and a mellow aromatic base to the broth.
Garlic
It contributes pungent aroma that mellows and sweetens as the stew simmers.
Saffron
It gives the broth its golden color and a distinctive floral aroma.
White wine
Its acidity brightens the broth and helps draw out flavor from the other ingredients.

The step that matters

Simmer for 15-20 minutes after the brisk boil. Fish and shellfish cook quickly. Prolonged rough boiling toughens fish proteins and makes mussels rubbery, so the heat should drop to a gentle simmer once the brisk boil is reached and the time should be watched closely.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Avocadofits about as well
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, onion, clove, garlic, parsley, saffron, 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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