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Fish Soup

A clear soup made from a large fish, water, onion, herbs, and seasonings, served with fried bread and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. Clean the fish thoroughly and place it in a pot over the fire.

  2. Add water, using 4 cups for each pound of fish, along with the chopped onion and sweet herbs.

  3. Cook until the fish is done and tasteless, then strain the mixture through a colander.

Finish the soup

  1. Return the strained liquid to the fire, adding butter, salt, and pepper to taste.

  2. If desired, stir in Worcestershire sauce.

Serve

  1. Serve with small squares of fried bread and thin slices of lemon.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  5. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Gives the broth its main flavor as heat draws out its savory compounds into the water.
Water
Acts as the cooking liquid that carries the fish and herb flavors into the soup.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the broth as it softens during cooking.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the finished broth taste richer and feel rounder on the palate.

The step that matters

Cook until the fish is done and tasteless. Heat releases the fish's flavor into the water, so the fish should be cooked fully to give the broth its taste. Straining afterward removes the spent fish and solids, leaving a clearer liquid.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, butter, pepper, sauce, bread, lemon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, pepper, sauce, bread, lemon. 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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