Skip to main content
Main

Fish Stock

A clear broth made by simmering cod head or fish with vegetables and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Fish Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the cod's head, removing the eyes and gills.

  2. Place the head or fish in a pan with water.

  3. Add the sliced vegetables and seasonings.

Simmer

  1. Bring to a boil, then skim off any foam.

  2. Simmer for 3 hours.

  3. After 30 minutes, remove the flesh from the cod's head and reserve it for serving in the soup.

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 + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Carrot + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Mace + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cod's head or fish
Provides the main fish flavour and gelatin that gives the stock body.
Onions
Add aroma and a gentle sweetness as they soften during the long simmer.
Carrot
Adds mild sweetness and rounds out the stock's flavour.
Turnip
Contributes a mild, earthy sweetness to the broth.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil, then skim off any foam.. Foam carries proteins and impurities that would cloud the stock and taint its flavour. Skimming it early keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting, and the stock should then stay at a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, carrot, turnip, onion):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, carrot, turnip, onion. 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

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesFried FishFried Fish120 recipesFish CroquettesFish Croquettes81 recipesScalloped CodScalloped Cod69 recipes