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Fish Soup

A broth made from fish bones, butter, rice flour, and milk, thickened and flavored with parsley, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Boil the bones and skin of the fish in 1 quart of water for 30 minutes.

  2. Strain the broth and set aside.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan, then stir in the rice flour.

  2. Add the strained broth to the butter and flour mixture.

  3. Cut the fish into small pieces and add to the saucepan along with salt and pepper.

  4. Simmer slowly for 10 minutes, then stir in the parsley just before serving.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + ricetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

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

  5. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Raw fish
Provides the main body and flavour of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour through the soup base.
Rice flour
Thickens the broth as it cooks with the butter.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness to the soup.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly after adding the fish. Gentle simmering cooks the fish through while keeping the pieces tender and intact. A hard boil can toughen the fish and break it apart, making the soup cloudy and uneven.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, butter, rice, flour, milk, pepper):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Turmericfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, rice, flour, milk, pepper. 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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