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Red-fish Soup

A hearty soup made with lard, flour, onions, herbs, tomatoes, water, sliced red fish, lemon, spices, claret, and served with rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Red-fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Heat the lard and flour in a soup pot over medium heat until browned.

  2. Add the chopped onions, thyme, and parsley; let them brown slightly.

  3. Stir in the tomatoes and pour in the water; bring to a boil.

Simmer and finish

  1. Let the soup boil for about 2.5 hours, starting at noon for a 4 o'clock dinner.

  2. Add the sliced fish, lemon, allspice, and season with salt, red pepper, and black pepper.

  3. Pour in the claret and let it boil for another 30 minutes.

  4. Serve hot with rice.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  4. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Lard and flour
Browning the flour in fat builds a roux that gives the soup body and a toasted flavor.
Onions
Softening and lightly browning them adds sweetness and savory depth to the broth.
Tomatoes
Provide acidity, moisture and a red color that forms the body of the soup.
Red fish
Supplies the main protein, which flakes into the broth as it simmers.
Claret
Adds acidity and wine flavor, and its alcohol is boiled off during the final simmer.

The step that matters

Browning the lard and flour. Flour browned in fat needs steady attention over medium heat. Scorching gives a bitter taste, while under-browning leaves a raw floury flavor and weakens the body of the soup.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, thyme, parsley, tomato, fish, lemon, allspice. 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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