Skip to main content
Main

Court Bouillon with Wine

Fish simmered in a wine court bouillon with salt, pepper, garlic, onion, cloves, thyme, hay leaves, and bacon or butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Garlic and onion 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 ↓

Court Bouillon with Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the cleaned fish in a fish kettle.

  2. Add wine, salt, pepper, garlic, onion, cloves, thyme, hay leaves, and bacon or butter.

  3. If using, add olive oil for a fast day.

Cook

  1. Hang the kettle over the fire and let the wine ignite to enhance flavor.

  2. Reduce the court bouillon by two-thirds, then remove the fish and drain it.

Serve

  1. Serve the fish on a napkin.

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. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  4. Garlic + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,608 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
The main ingredient, gently cooked in the bouillon until it is ready to serve.
Wine
Provides acidity and body, and its flavor concentrates as the bouillon reduces.
Bacon or butter
Adds fat that carries flavor and gives the bouillon a richer texture.
Onion
Releases sweetness and savory aroma into the bouillon as it simmers.
Garlic
Adds aroma that mellows and spreads through the liquid during cooking.

The step that matters

Reduce the court bouillon by two-thirds. Reducing concentrates the flavors and salt in the liquid, so it can turn too strong if reduced too far. Watch it closely and remove the fish once the reduction is complete.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, wine, pepper, garlic, onion, thyme, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, wine, pepper, garlic, onion, thyme, butter. 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

Fried FishFried Fish120 recipesFish CroquettesFish Croquettes81 recipesScalloped CodScalloped Cod69 recipesBroiled FishBroiled Fish68 recipes