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Fish Soup

A fish soup made with plaice, onions, parsley, water, butter, catsup, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Clean, skin, and cut the fish into small fillets.

  2. Boil the head, skin, and bones with the onions and parsley until the water is reduced to 1 quart.

  3. Skim and strain the stock.

Finish and serve

  1. Brown the butter and add it to the stock to color and thicken it.

  2. Add the fish fillets and boil for 30 minutes.

  3. Season to taste with salt and pepper, then serve.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Plaice or brill or skate
Provides the main body of the soup as tender fish fillets.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and flavor to the stock as it boils.
Butter
Browned, it adds color and a nutty aroma to the stock and helps thicken it.

The step that matters

Browning the butter. Butter that is browned too little gives little color and flavor, while butter taken too far turns bitter and dark. Watch it closely and remove it once it is golden brown and nutty, before adding it to the stock.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, butter, pepper, wine, sherry):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, butter, pepper, wine, sherry. 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.

More fish soup recipes

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