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 ↓
Fish Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the base
Heat the butter in a saucepan.
Add the flour and blend well.
Pour in the fish stock and boil for 3 minutes, stirring constantly.
Finish
Add the milk, reheat, and serve.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,488 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Fish + milktop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,432 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Fish stock
- Forms the liquid base and gives the soup its main fish flavour.
- Butter
- Carries flavour and, with the flour, forms the base that thickens the soup.
- Flour
- Thickens the stock by swelling in the hot butter and liquid.
- Milk
- Adds creaminess and softens the soup's flavour at the end.
The step that matters
Blending the flour into the butter and adding the stock. Flour must be fully blended into the melted butter before liquid goes in, and the stock must be stirred constantly while boiling. Otherwise the starch clumps and the soup turns lumpy instead of smooth.
“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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