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Fish Soup

A broth made from cod or haddock bones, flavored with parsley, onions, white pepper, mace, and finished with milk, flour, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 broth

  1. Remove the flesh from the bones of the fish.

  2. In a pot, combine the bones, water, parsley, onions, white pepper, salt, and mace.

  3. Boil slowly for 1 hour.

  4. Strain the broth and return it to the pot.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the milk, flour, and butter to the strained broth.

  2. Cut the fish flesh into neat pieces and add them to the pot.

  3. Boil everything together for 15 minutes.

  4. Serve with chopped parsley in the tureen.

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. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  3. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 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

Codlings or small haddocks
Provides the flaky fish flesh that makes up the body of the soup.
Milk
Adds richness and a creamy, mellow body to the broth.
Flour
Thickens the broth slightly so it feels fuller in the mouth.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rounded flavour and silky mouthfeel.
Onions
Release sweetness and savoury depth into the broth as they simmer.

The step that matters

Boil everything together for 15 minutes. Once the fish pieces go in, a vigorous boil will break them apart and toughen the flesh. A gentle simmer keeps the pieces neat and tender while the flavours meld.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, parsley, onion, mace, milk, 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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