Why it works: Haddock and cream work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 181 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Fish Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fish
Wash and scrape the fish clean, ensuring no black skin remains inside.
Do not remove the skin or fins, but take out the eyes.
Cut the fish into five or six pieces and place them in a lined saucepan.
Cook the soup
Cover the fish with cold water and add salt; bring to a boil and skim off any foam.
After boiling for a few minutes, remove a few pieces of fish, free from skin and bone, and set aside for serving.
Allow the remaining fish to simmer slowly for 30 to 60 minutes.
Strain the soup through a wire sieve and rub some of the white fish pieces through the sieve.
Make the thickened base
Rinse the saucepan.
Melt the butter in it. Add the flour. Mix smoothly without browning.
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.
-
Haddock + creamtop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together181 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
-
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
-
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together16,675 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Butter
- Melted with flour to form a roux that thickens the soup.
- Flour
- Mixed with melted butter to form a roux that thickens the soup.
- Milk
- Adds liquid and richness to the soup base.
- Cream
- Adds richness and a smooth, silky body.
- Egg yolk
- Enriches and thickens the soup, adding body and richness.
The step that matters
Mixing the flour without browning. Butter and flour must be stirred smoothly over gentle heat. Browning changes the flavour and colour of the base, and lumps form if the flour is not blended evenly into the fat.
Swap the parsley
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (haddock, milk, butter, egg, cream, flour):
- Nutmegfits better
- Capersfits better
- Cinnamonfits about as well
- Parsleythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, milk, butter, egg, cream, flour. 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.
More fish soup recipes
You might also like
Boiled Haddock10 recipes
Tomato Soup526 recipes
Brown Bread461 recipes
Mutton Broth292 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.