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Fish Soup

A broth of fish, vegetables, and herbs served with toasted French roll and grated Parmesan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. In a large stewpan, heat the butter and olive oil until blended.

  2. Add the sliced onion and chopped parsley, and fry until softened.

Cook the fish and vegetables

  1. Add the remaining vegetables and fish pieces, ensuring they are dry. Sprinkle with pepper and salt, and fry until the fish is slightly browned.

  2. Add the sliced tomatoes and boiling water. Simmer until the fish is thoroughly cooked, skimming occasionally.

Strain and serve

  1. Once cooled slightly, strain the soup. Remove the fish bones and rub the fish and vegetables through a sieve back into the broth.

  2. Let the soup simmer for another 10 minutes before serving.

  3. Slice the French roll and bake until moderately brown. Place the slices in a tureen and pour the soup over them.

  4. Serve with grated Parmesan cheese.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  4. Olive + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

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

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh fish
Provides the main protein and, once rubbed through a sieve, body and flavour to the broth.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the initial frying of the vegetables.
Olive oil
Carries heat evenly and helps the butter brown the fish and vegetables.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and sweetness that balance the fish and give the broth colour.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it fries, building the savoury base of the soup.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and body to the broth when rubbed through the sieve.

The step that matters

Drying the fish before frying. Fish pieces that are wet steam instead of browning in the hot fat, so drying them first lets the surface brown and develop flavour.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, carrot, celery, mushroom, butter, olive, parsley):

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, carrot, celery, mushroom, butter, olive, parsley. 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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