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Fish Soup

A soup made with cod, milk, onion, celery, vinegar, flour, butter, salt, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Cook the fish in boiling salted water with vinegar until it flakes easily.

  2. Drain, remove bones and skin, and rub through a colander.

Make the soup

  1. Cook the onion and celery in the milk for 10 minutes, then remove.

  2. Thicken the milk with butter, salt, pepper, and flour mixed together.

  3. Boil for 5 minutes, then add the fish and boil once more.

  4. Serve immediately.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Cod
Forms the body of the soup, becoming tender and flaky when cooked.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, creamy base as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the flour blend smoothly into the milk.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour and becomes the creamy broth.

The step that matters

Thicken the milk with butter and flour. Flour must be fully mixed in and the milk kept at a gentle boil so the starch swells evenly. Stirring well prevents lumps and a pasty, uneven texture.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, onion, vinegar, flour, butter):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, onion, vinegar, flour, butter. 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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