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Bouillabaisse — Marseillaise or Provengal Fish Soup

A fish soup from Marseille made with assorted fish, shrimp, herbs, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Bouillabaisse — Marseillaise or Provengal Fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the shrimp stock

  1. Remove shells from shrimp.

  2. Boil shrimp in water for 20 minutes.

  3. Strain liquid from shells.

  4. Let the liquid settle.

Make the broth

  1. Brown slices of carrot and onion in butter with a dusting of flour until tender.

  2. Gradually dilute the browned mixture with water or broth.

  3. Add the clear shrimp shell liquid.

  4. Season with sugar, herbs, white wine, and nutmeg or cloves.

  5. Thicken with arrowroot.

  6. Boil while stirring.

  7. Strain through a colander.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the picked shrimp and pieces of fish.

  2. Heat through without boiling.

  3. Serve with toast-dice.

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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Shrimp + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,931 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Provides the main body and flavour of the soup as it cooks in the broth.
Shrimp
Adds sweet, briny flavour from both the meat and the shells used for stock.
Butter
Carries flavour from the browned vegetables and adds richness to the broth.
Flour
Helps brown the vegetables and begins to thicken the broth.
Arrowroot
Thickens the broth to a smooth, glossy body without clouding it.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth that balances the rich fish broth.

The step that matters

Heat through without boiling. Fish and shrimp turn tough and dry when boiled, and boiling can break up the delicate pieces. Gentle heat cooks them through while keeping them tender.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, whiting, shrimp, butter, flour, sugar, white wine):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Garlicfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, whiting, shrimp, butter, flour, sugar, white wine. 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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