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New Orleans “court-bouillon.

A New Orleans fish soup with tomato, wine, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Red wine and tomato work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

New Orleans “court-bouillon.

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Fry the chopped onion in butter until soft.

  2. Add the chopped tomatoes and cloves.

  3. Stew for 30 minutes.

  4. Blend the flour with ½ pint of red wine; add to the mixture and boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

  5. Strain the sauce and return it to the saucepan.

Cook the fish

  1. Cut the fish into steaks.

  2. Add the steaks to the sauce.

  3. Simmer gently for 6 to 10 minutes until cooked.

Assemble and serve

  1. Prepare slices of dry toast in a deep dish to cover the bottom.

  2. Place the cooked fish on the toast.

  3. Add the remaining ½ pint of red wine to the sauce.

  4. Pour the sauce over the fish.

  5. Garnish with chopped sweet pepper and cayenne.

  6. Serve with lemon and fried parsley.

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. Red wine + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Red wine + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Firm fish
Forms the main body of the dish, holding its shape when simmered in the sauce.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the sauce, and thins it as it reduces.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it coats the fish and toast.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the onion's flavour into the sauce.
Tomatoes
Provide acidity, body and a rounded savoury base for the sauce.
Onion
Builds the savoury base of the sauce as it softens in butter.

The step that matters

Boil the flour and wine mixture while stirring constantly. Flour thickens only when heated and kept moving; if it sits without stirring it can clump into lumps and leave the sauce unevenly thick.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, red wine, butter, tomato, clove, flour, lemon):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, red wine, butter, tomato, clove, flour, lemon. 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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