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Fish and Tomato Soup

A soup made with fish head, fish pieces, tomatoes, herbs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,225 recipes mention both. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Fish and Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Boil the head of the fish in water with herbs, onion, and garlic.

Make the soup

  1. Cut up the fish, remove the bones, and fry the pieces in butter.

  2. Add browned flour, tomatoes, and the broth from boiling the head.

  3. Cook for about 3 hours.

  4. Stir in Tabasco and Worcestershire sauces, parsley, and butter.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Tomato + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Red fish
Provides the main flavor and body of the soup, with the head giving the broth its richness.
Fresh tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture, giving the soup its tomato flavor and a looser texture.
Browned flour
Thickens the soup slightly and adds a toasted, nutty flavor.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and carries flavor when the fish pieces are fried.

The step that matters

Remove the bones after boiling the head. Fish bones are sharp and easy to miss once the flesh is cut up. Checking each piece by hand before frying and simmering keeps them out of the finished soup.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

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

  1. Shallotbetter flavor fit
  2. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  3. Parsnipbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, tomato, parsley, sauce, flour, thyme, marjoram. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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