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Fish Soup

A clear soup made with white fish, shrimp, vegetables, herbs, and butter, simmered for two hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Haddock and whiting match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 103 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the fish well.

  2. Cut the fish into small pieces.

  3. Chop the bones.

Make the soup

  1. In a saucepan, combine the fish, bones, and 3 pints of cold water.

  2. Add the sliced vegetables, shrimp shells tied in muslin, herbs, and mace.

  3. Bring to a boil.

  4. Skim off any foam.

  5. Add salt and pepper.

  6. Boil for 2 hours until the vegetables are tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Reserve the shrimp for garnishing.

  2. Add the chopped parsley before serving.

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. Haddock + whitingtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together103 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Shrimp + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,931 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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

White fish
Provides the main body and flavour of the broth as it cooks down.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and colour to the broth as they soften during the long simmer.
Leek
Adds a mild onion-like aroma that builds the base flavour of the soup.
Shrimp
Shells release savoury shellfish flavour into the broth while the meat is kept for garnish.

The step that matters

Skim off the foam. Foam that rises as the liquid heats contains proteins and impurities. Removing it early keeps the broth clear and stops it tasting scummy.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, haddock, whiting, shrimp, butter, milk, flour):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, haddock, whiting, shrimp, butter, milk, flour. 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

White 9Lake and Pond 6Water Soucy 6Brown 4Clear 3Russian 3 See all 129 →

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