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Court Bouillon

A fish broth made with a whole fish, butter, flour, onion, herbs, and Worcestershire sauce, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Court Bouillon

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a porcelain or granite kettle, melt the butter and stir in the flour until browned.

  2. Add the chopped onion, thyme, parsley, cloves, Worcestershire sauce, and lemon juice.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the fish on top and pour enough boiling water to cover it.

  2. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  3. 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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  4. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Melted fat that carries flavour and starts the roux with the flour.
Flour
Browned with the butter to form a roux that thickens and deepens the broth.
Onion
Releases sweetness and savoury aroma into the broth as it cooks.
Fish
Main protein that releases body and flavour into the boiling water.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the broth and balances the richness.

The step that matters

Browning the flour in the butter. Flour cooked in melted butter must be stirred until it turns golden. Underdone flour tastes raw and pasty, while over-browned flour turns bitter and dark, so the roux needs steady attention.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, thyme, parsley, clove, sauce, lemon):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, thyme, parsley, clove, sauce, 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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