Skip to main content
Main

Fish Soup

A soup made with fish, potatoes, onions, sweet milk, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the fish

  1. Boil the fish in 3 quarts of water until cooked.

  2. Remove all bones from the fish.

Make the soup

  1. Boil the potatoes and onions until tender.

  2. Slice the boiled potatoes and onions.

  3. Add the sliced potatoes and onions to the pot with the fish broth.

  4. Let the mixture stew well.

  5. Stir in 1 pint of sweet milk.

Serve

  1. Place the butter in a tureen.

  2. Pour the hot soup over the butter in the tureen.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

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

  5. Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Provides the main flavour and body of the broth.
Potatoes
Break down slightly as they stew, thickening the soup and adding body.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften in the broth.
Sweet milk
Adds richness and a mellow, creamy texture to the soup.
Butter
Adds fat and richness as the hot soup melts it into the bowl.

The step that matters

Stirring in the milk. Milk can curdle or separate if it boils hard or is added to a very hot, acidic liquid. Keep the soup hot but not boiling once the milk goes in.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, potato, milk, egg, butter):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, potato, milk, egg, butter. 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.

More fish soup recipes

White 9Lake and Pond 6Water Soucy 6Brown 4Clear 3Russian 3 See all 129 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesFried FishFried Fish120 recipesFish CroquettesFish Croquettes81 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipes