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Fish Soup

A savory soup made with flaked fish, onions, curry powder, and brown flour, finished with lemon juice and served with boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,433 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove skin, fat, and bones from the fish and flake the meat.

Make the base

  1. Melt butter in a saucepan and add sliced onions and green tops.

  2. Simmer until nearly dry and starting to fry.

  3. Add fish stock to the saucepan.

  4. Mix curry powder and brown flour, stir into the stock for thickening.

  5. Bring to a boil, then strain into a soup pot.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the flaked fish and simmer, skimming off fat and foam frequently.

  2. Add lemon juice to the soup before serving.

  3. Serve with a spoonful of boiled rice in each bowl.

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. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Fish + ricetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together270 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Firm fish
Provides the main body of the soup as flaked, tender meat.
Brown flour
Thickens the stock so the soup has a fuller, smoother body.
Onions
Cooked down until nearly dry and frying, they add sweetness and depth to the base.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced aroma and flavour that defines the soup.
Lemon juice
Adds brightness and acidity that lifts the rich, spiced broth.
Butter
Carries the onions and spices and adds richness to the base.

The step that matters

Simmering the fish with skimming. Simmering gently keeps the flaked fish tender and intact, while skimming removes fat and foam that would otherwise cloud the broth and taste greasy.

Swap the onion

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

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

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