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Fish Soup

A fish soup with onion, carrot, celery, mushrooms, tomatoes, and French roll, served with Parmesan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup base

  1. Heat the butter and olive oil in a large stewpan until blended.

  2. Add the chopped onion and parsley and fry until softened.

  3. Stir in the remaining vegetables and fish pieces, ensuring they are dry.

  4. Sprinkle with pepper and salt and fry until the fish is slightly browned.

Simmer and strain

  1. Add the sliced tomatoes and boiling water.

  2. Simmer until the fish is cooked, skimming occasionally.

  3. Once cooled slightly, strain the soup, removing fish bones.

  4. Rub the fish and vegetables through a sieve and return to the broth.

  5. Simmer for another 10 minutes before serving.

Bake and serve

  1. Slice the French roll and bake the slices until moderately brown.

  2. Place the roll slices in a tureen and pour the soup over them.

  3. Serve with grated Parmesan cheese.

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

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

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  4. Olive + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

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

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

Fresh fish
Provides the main body and flavour of the soup as it cooks down into the broth.
Butter
Adds richness and helps brown the fish and vegetables during frying.
Olive oil
Carries heat evenly and helps the vegetables and fish brown in the pan.
Onion
Builds savoury sweetness and aroma as it softens in the fat.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body to the broth as they break down while simmering.
Button mushrooms
Contribute earthy savour and body to the strained soup.

The step that matters

Simmer until the fish is cooked, skimming occasionally. Gentle simmering keeps the fish tender and the broth clear, while skimming removes coagulated proteins and foam that would otherwise cloud the soup and taste scummy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, carrot, celery, mushroom, butter, olive, parsley):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, carrot, celery, mushroom, butter, olive, parsley. 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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