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Fish Soup

A clear fish soup made with water, onions, sea salt, lemon peel, sweet herbs, and various white fish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and fish are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,889 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large pot, combine 2 quarts of water, 2 onions, coarse sea salt, a piece of lemon peel, and a bunch of sweet herbs.

  2. Add the fish to the pot and bring to a boil. Skim off any foam that forms on the surface.

  3. Once cooked, strain the stock to remove solids.

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. Lemon + fishtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,889 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Onion + fishtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,924 recipes

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

  3. Onion + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,646 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Provides the main flesh and flavor that gives the soup its character.
Onions
Release sweetness and aromatic flavor into the stock as they simmer.

The step that matters

Skim off the foam. Foam that forms on the surface of a boiling stock carries impurities from the fish and can make the broth look cloudy and taste muddy. Removing it as it forms keeps the stock clear and clean-flavored.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, fish):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, fish. 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

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