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Fish Soup Stock

A clear fish stock made by simmering fish bones, head, trimmings, vegetables, herbs, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme 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 ↓

Fish Soup Stock

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a soup pot, heat butter drippings.

  2. Add chopped onion, carrot, and turnip; fry without browning.

  3. Add fish bones, head, trimmings, celery, parsley, thyme, bay leaf, and onion slice.

  4. Cover with water and simmer for at least 1 hour.

  5. Season with salt and pepper, then strain the stock.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fish bones, head, and trimmings
Provide the main body and gelatin-rich flavor that give the stock its character.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savory depth as it softens in the fat without browning.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and body to the stock's aromatic base.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and earthy background flavor to the stock.
Butter drippings
Carries the aromatic vegetables' flavor and adds richness to the base.

The step that matters

Fry the vegetables without browning. Browning would turn the sugars bitter and darken the stock. Gentle frying softens the vegetables and releases their flavor into the fat while keeping the stock clear and mild.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, carrot, turnip, fish, celery, parsley, thyme):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, carrot, turnip, fish, celery, parsley, thyme. 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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