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Thick Fish Soup

A creamy fish soup thickened with butter, flour, and egg yolks, flavored with herbs and a splash of Tabasco.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Thick Fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a large stewpan over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped onions.

  3. Cook for 2-3 minutes without browning.

  4. Remove from heat.

  5. Stir in the flour until well mixed.

  6. Gradually add the fish stock.

  7. Stir continuously until it boils.

  8. Add the bay leaf, thyme, parsley, peppercorn, salt, and Tabasco.

  9. Boil for 30 minutes.

  10. Skim occasionally.

Finish with egg yolks and cream

  1. In a bowl, combine the egg yolks and cream.

  2. Take some of the boiling soup.

  3. Pour it over the egg mixture.

  4. Stir quickly.

  5. Return the mixture to the stewpan.

  6. Stir briskly.

  7. Bring to a boil while stirring constantly.

  8. Strain into a soup tureen.

  9. Stir in the Madeira or Sherry.

  10. Serve with croutons.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Carries the onions and enriches the soup with fat and flavour.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth, lightly bodied soup as it cooks.
Fish stock
Forms the liquid base that gives the soup its main body and flavour.
Egg yolks
Thicken the soup into a silky texture when gently heated with the cream.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness, softening the soup's texture with fat.
Madeira or sherry
Adds a fortified wine aroma and a touch of sweetness and depth at the end.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk mixture. Egg yolks thicken when heated but scramble if they get too hot. Tempering with some hot soup first, then stirring briskly while bringing it to a boil, keeps the texture smooth rather than curdled.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, fish, thyme, parsley, egg, cream):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, fish, thyme, parsley, egg, cream. 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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