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Lake and Pond Fish Soup

A soup made by stewing freshwater fish with tomato, carrots, leek, onion, herbs, and seasonal roots, finished with milk or water and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Lake and Pond Fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Wash the fish in salt and water.

Make the soup

  1. Stew the fish with the tomato, carrots, leek, fried onion, and sweet herbs in enough water to cover them until reduced to a pulp.

  2. Strain the liquid and boil it for another hour until smooth.

  3. Boil the chopped seasonal roots in milk or water, then add them to the soup.

  4. Let the soup simmer for 15 minutes.

Season and serve

  1. Season with mace and celery, and a little cayenne if using milk, or with savory sauces if made with water.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Leek + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Leek + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  5. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh-water fish
Provides the main body and flavour of the soup as it stews down.
Tomato
Adds acidity and body, helping the vegetables break down into a pulp.
Carrots
Contribute sweetness and body as they soften and reduce into the stock.
Leek
Adds mild onion-like aroma and body to the stewed base.
Seasonal roots
Thicken and add starchy body when boiled and added to the soup.

The step that matters

Stewing the fish and vegetables to a pulp. The fish and vegetables must be cooked long enough to break down fully, so the straining yields a smooth liquid. Stopping early leaves lumps and a thin, uneven base.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, tomato, carrot, leek, onion, milk, celery):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, tomato, carrot, leek, onion, milk, celery. 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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