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Puree of Fish, or Cream Soup of Fish

A creamy soup made by puréeing boiled fish with butter, flour, and milk, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Puree of Fish, or Cream Soup of Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub the cold boiled fish through a fine sieve.

Make the soup

  1. In a saucepan, mix the butter and flour until smooth over medium heat.

  2. Gradually add the milk (or milk and water) to the mixture, stirring constantly.

  3. Add the sifted fish to the saucepan and mix well.

  4. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Butter
Fat that forms the base of the roux with flour and adds richness to the soup.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth cream when cooked with butter.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the cream soup and gives it body.
Cold boiled fish
Provides the main flavor and, once sieved, a smooth texture to the soup.

The step that matters

Gradually add the milk while stirring constantly. Adding liquid slowly while stirring keeps the flour and butter mixture smooth. Dumping in milk at once can trap lumps of starch that do not dissolve, leaving a grainy soup.

“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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