Skip to main content
Main

Brown Fish Soup

A simple soup made by browning fish pieces, then simmering them in water with salt, pepper, and optional garlic.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Olive and garlic are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 25,665 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

Brown Fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Coat the fish pieces in flour.

  2. Heat olive oil or butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  3. Brown the fish pieces in the saucepan.

Make the soup

  1. Cover the fish with hot water.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

  3. Boil slowly for about 15 minutes.

  4. Add a clove of garlic if desired.

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. Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Olive + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,866 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Provides the main protein and flavour of the soup once browned and simmered.
Flour
Coats the fish so it browns more evenly and slightly thickens the broth.
Olive oil or butter
Conducts heat for browning the fish and adds richness to the soup.

The step that matters

Brown the fish pieces in the saucepan. Browning the floured fish in hot fat creates colour and roasted flavour through the Maillard reaction. Fish that is crowded or not hot enough will steam instead, losing that flavour.

Swap the clove

The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, flour, olive, pepper, garlic):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, flour, olive, pepper, garlic. 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.

You might also like

Fried FishFried Fish120 recipesFish CroquettesFish Croquettes81 recipesScalloped CodScalloped Cod69 recipesBroiled FishBroiled Fish68 recipes