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Stock for Fish Soup

A stock made from flounder, perch, veal broth, ham, vegetables, herbs, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Stock for Fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Gut and clean the flounders and perch carefully.

Make the stock

  1. Put the fish into a stewpan with the veal broth.

  2. Add the ham, carrots, celery, onions, sweet herbs, salt, and cayenne.

  3. Stew until the fish can pass through a coarse sieve.

  4. Return the mixture to the stewpan with butter and flour to thicken.

  5. Add the white wine and garlic vinegar.

  6. For added flavor, include gravy from potted herrings or anchovies.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Flounders
Break down during stewing to give the stock body and fish flavor.
Veal broth
Forms the liquid base that carries flavor from the fish and vegetables.
Butter
Enriches the stock and carries flavor as part of the thickening mixture.
Flour
Thickens the stock when cooked with butter, giving it a fuller texture.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the stock.

The step that matters

Stew until the fish can pass through a coarse sieve. The fish must cook long enough to break down fully so its flavor and body dissolve into the liquid. Stopping early leaves the stock thin and weakly flavored, while overcooking can make it cloudy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, veal, ham, carrot, celery, pepper, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, veal, ham, carrot, celery, pepper, 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.

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