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Fish Soup

A broth made from fish, vegetables, and milk, finished with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsnip and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,097 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Wash and skin the fish, then separate the flesh from the bones.

  2. Combine the skin, bones, trimmings, and water in a large saucepan.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Add the parsnip, carrot, onions, parsley, salt, and pepper.

  5. Boil for 1 ½ hours.

  6. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

  7. Return the liquid to the pot.

Finish and serve

  1. Mix the flour with a little milk until smooth.

  2. Add the rest of the milk and butter to the soup.

  3. Cut the fish into pieces the size of an oyster and add them to the soup.

  4. Boil for 20 minutes.

  5. Season to taste.

  6. Serve.

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. Parsnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Parsnip + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together484 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  5. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Provides the main body of flavour and the flesh that makes the soup substantial.
Flour
Thickens the soup, giving it body when mixed smooth before adding.
Butter
Adds richness and a silkier mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the broth's flavour.
Onions
Build savoury sweetness and aroma as they simmer in the stock.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour with milk until smooth. Flour added directly to hot liquid clumps instead of dissolving. Blending it first with a little cold milk into a smooth paste lets it disperse evenly and thicken the soup without lumps.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, parsnip, carrot, parsley, pepper, flour, milk):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, parsnip, carrot, parsley, pepper, flour, milk. 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

White 9Lake and Pond 6Water Soucy 6Brown 4Clear 3Russian 3 See all 129 →

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