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Fish Glaze

A glaze made by simmering fish bones with vegetables, wine, and seasonings, clarified with egg whites and caramel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Fish Glaze

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Chop the fish bones and cuttings into small pieces and place them in a stewpan.

  2. Cover with 5 pints of water and 1 pint of white wine or substitute with ½ cup of Orleans vinegar.

  3. Bring to a boil, skimming off any impurities, then add the chopped vegetables and seasonings.

  4. Boil once, then reduce heat and simmer for 1.5 hours.

  5. Strain the broth and cool it, removing any fat or scum that forms on the surface.

Clarify and reduce

  1. Color the broth with a few drops of caramel and clarify it using the whites and shells of the eggs.

  2. Strain again and boil down to a glaze consistency.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fish bones and cuttings
Release gelatin and savory flavor into the broth, giving the finished glaze body.
Egg whites and shells
Bind fine particles and impurities so they can be strained out, leaving a clear broth.
White wine or orleans vinegar
Adds acidity that helps draw flavor and minerals from the bones into the liquid.
Onion
Contributes aromatic sweetness and depth to the broth as it simmers.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and body to the simmering broth.

The step that matters

Clarifying with egg whites and shells. Egg whites coagulate as they heat and trap cloudy particles, so they must be stirred in and brought to a gentle simmer, then strained carefully. Boiling too hard breaks the raft apart and leaves the glaze cloudy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (whiting, white wine, turnip, carrot, celery, parsley, pepper):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against whiting, white wine, turnip, carrot, celery, parsley, 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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