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Fish Bisque

A creamy fish soup made with fish stock, minced fish, butter, flour, parsley, milk, bread crumbs, and served with lemon and crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Fish Bisque

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Strain the fish stock through a cloth and season with pepper and salt.

  2. Set the strained stock aside to cool.

  3. Heat the fish stock to boiling.

Make the bisque

  1. Add the minced fish and simmer for 5 minutes.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix butter and flour until smooth.

  3. Stir this mixture into the soup along with the minced parsley.

  4. In another vessel, combine hot milk with dry bread crumbs and a pinch of baking soda. Mix the mixture well.

  5. Combine the milk mixture with the soup, stirring thoroughly.

  6. Simmer for 1 minute and serve hot.

Serve

  1. Serve with sliced lemon and crackers.

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

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fish stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour of the whole bisque.
Cooked fish
Supplies the main fish flavour and body in the soup.
Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the soup and adds richness.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softness to the soup.
Dry bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help thicken the bisque with body.
Baking soda
Raises the pH of the milk and bread crumb mixture, softening it for smooth blending.

The step that matters

Combining the milk mixture with the soup. Adding the hot milk and bread crumb mixture to boiling soup can curdle the milk or make the thickening lumpy. Stir thoroughly and keep the heat gentle so the bisque stays smooth.

“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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