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Bouillabaisse

Bouillabaisse is a French fish stew made with various fish, mussels, herbs, and orange peel, simmered in wine and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Bouillabaisse

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the fish thoroughly and cut it into pieces.

Stew

  1. In a stew-pan, combine the fish, mussels, orange peel, onion, bay leaf, garlic, parsley, saffron, pepper, salt, and white wine.

  2. Add enough water and olive oil to cover the ingredients.

  3. Stew over a brisk fire for 15 to 20 minutes.

Serve

  1. Toast or fry slices of bread, then pour the bouillabaisse over them.

  2. Serve hot.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Parsley + saffrontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  4. Orange + saffrontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together185 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Garlic + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the body of the stew and releases flavour into the broth as it cooks.
Mussels
Add briny, savoury flavour to the broth as they open during stewing.
White wine
Adds acidity that brightens the broth and helps lift the aromatics.
Garlic
Contributes pungent aroma that mellows and sweetens as it simmers.
Onion
Provides sweetness and body to the broth as it softens during stewing.

The step that matters

Stew over a brisk fire for 15 to 20 minutes. Fish cooks quickly and turns dry or tough if overcooked, while mussels must be heated just until they open. Watching the timing keeps the fish tender and the shellfish safe to eat.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, onion, clove, garlic, parsley, saffron, pepper):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Avocadofits about as well
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, onion, clove, garlic, parsley, saffron, 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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