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Fish Soup

A fish soup with ham, spices, dumplings, and diced toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 687 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a soup pot, combine the fish pieces and milk.

  2. Add pieces of cold boiled ham.

  3. Season with cayenne pepper, mace, and nutmeg.

  4. Stir in the chopped sweet marjoram.

Add dumplings and cook

  1. Make dumplings with flour and butter.

  2. Add the dumplings to the pot when the soup is halfway done.

  3. Boil for 30 minutes until cooked through.

Serve

  1. Serve in a tureen with fish, ham, and diced toast.

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. Nutmeg + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Provides the main protein and flavour, flaking into the milk as it cooks.
Whole milk
Forms the liquid base, adding richness and a mild sweetness to the soup.
Flour
Thickens and binds the dumplings so they hold their shape while boiling.
Butter
Adds fat to the dumplings, giving them tenderness and a rich flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the dumplings halfway through. Dumplings dropped into a fully rolling pot can break apart or cook unevenly. Adding them mid-cook lets them set in gently simmering liquid and cook through with the rest of the soup.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, milk, ham, pepper, nutmeg, marjoram, flour):

  1. Winter savoryfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, milk, ham, pepper, nutmeg, marjoram, 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.

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