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Fish Soup

A soup made with halibut, onions, broth, and seasoned with salt, cayenne, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,889 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the fish into neat strips and remove the bones from the fish.

  2. Remove the fat from the cold broth set aside from yesterday.

  3. Add the fish bones to the broth.

  4. Stew the broth down.

Make the soup

  1. Fry the sliced onions in dripping until golden, then drain the fat from the onions.

  2. Layer the fried onions in the bottom of a soup pot.

  3. Place the fish on top of the onions.

  4. Add a little broth.

  5. Simmer gently for one hour.

  6. Dredge each piece of fish with flour.

  7. Return the floured fish to the kettle.

  8. Cover with the strained stock.

  9. Cook slowly for half an hour.

  10. Add cayenne and lemon juice.

  11. 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. Fish + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,889 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Fish + oniontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,924 recipes

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

  5. Onion + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,646 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Halibut or other white fish
Forms the main body of the soup and flakes into tender pieces as it cooks.
Flour
Dredging the fish gives a light coating that helps it hold together and thickens the broth slightly.
Onions
Frying until golden builds a sweet, savoury base under the fish.
Broth
Forms the liquid of the soup, carrying flavour from the fish bones and onions.

The step that matters

Simmer gently. Boiling vigorously toughens delicate fish and breaks it apart, so the broth should only barely move while the fish cooks.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, lemon, flour):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, lemon, flour. 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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