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Fish Soup

A haddock fish soup made with milk, vegetables, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Wash the haddock and fish trimmings well.

  2. Skin the fish and set aside the flesh.

Make the stock

  1. Place all trimmings and bones in a saucepan and cover with cold water.

  2. Add a little salt.

  3. Add the washed and chopped vegetables (except parsley) and the bread.

  4. Simmer for 1 hour.

  5. Strain the soup.

Thicken and finish

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour with a little cold milk until smooth.

  2. Add the flour mixture to the strained soup.

  3. Boil for a few minutes.

  4. Add the fish cut into neat pieces.

  5. Simmer for 5 minutes.

  6. Stir in the heated milk.

  7. Add parsley.

  8. Season with salt and pepper.

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

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

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Haddock
Provides the main flesh and flavour of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the strained stock into a smooth, light body.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness to the finished soup.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and savoury depth to the stock.
Bread
Adds body to the stock as it simmers.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour with cold milk until smooth. Flour added directly to hot liquid forms lumps, because its starch clumps before it can disperse. Blending it with a little cold milk first lets the starch separate evenly for a smooth thickening.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, milk, fish, flour, bread, carrot, 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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