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Bouillabaisse

A fish stew made with leeks, oil, and oily fish, boiled in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Leek and fish work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 62 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Bouillabaisse

Ingredients

Directions

Build the base

  1. Slice the white part of the leeks very thinly and place them at the bottom of a stew pan.

  2. Add oil and the fish cut into slices, then fry for a few minutes until it begins to brown.

Simmer

  1. Add water and boil rapidly over high heat for about 15 minutes.

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. Leek + fishtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together62 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Leeks
Soften as they cook, adding mild sweetness and body to the broth.
Oil
Carries heat to the fish and helps it brown in the pan.
Mackerel or oily fish
Provides the main flavour as it browns and breaks down into the broth.

The step that matters

Fry the fish until it begins to brown. Browning through the Maillard reaction builds savoury, roasted flavour that carries into the broth. Pale, steamed fish gives a flatter taste.

“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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