Skip to main content
Main

Fish Soup

A clear broth made from fish bones and vegetables, finished with fish meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the broth

  1. In a large pot, combine fish bones and trimmings with water.

  2. Add onion, carrot, celery, bay leaf, salt, and pepper.

  3. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

  4. Strain the broth and discard solids.

Finish the soup

  1. Return the broth to the pot and add any desired fish meat.

  2. Simmer until the fish is cooked through, about 10 minutes.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish bones and trimmings
Release gelatin and flavor into the water, giving the broth body and a savory base.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth as it softens and infuses the broth.
Carrot
Contributes mild sweetness and body to the simmered broth.
Celery
Adds savory, herbal aroma to the broth as it simmers.

The step that matters

Simmer gently rather than boil. A hard boil makes the broth cloudy and can toughen the fish, while a gentle simmer extracts flavor cleanly and cooks the fish through evenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, carrot, celery, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, carrot, celery, pepper. 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.

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesFried FishFried Fish120 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesFish CroquettesFish Croquettes81 recipes