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Fish Soup

A herb-infused fish soup made with fish, anchovies, vegetables, and a thickened broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Winter savory and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 780 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the herb broth

  1. Chop basil, winter savory, lemon thyme, and parsley.

  2. Combine with allspice and black pepper in a pot, cover, and simmer gently for 2 hours.

  3. Strain the mixture and skim off any fat.

Thicken the broth

  1. In a clean pot, melt the butter.

  2. Stir in enough flour or arrowroot to form a stiff paste.

  3. Gradually add the strained liquid.

  4. Simmer for 10 minutes and pass through a sieve.

Make the fish soup and serve

  1. In another pot, place the fish pieces, anchovies, onions, parsnips, turnips, celery, and sweet herbs.

  2. Add boiling water and stew for 2 hours.

  3. Strain the fish broth and season with salt and white pepper.

  4. Add force meat balls and 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. Winter savory + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together780 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Thyme + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Basil + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  5. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor into the thickened broth.
Flour or arrowroot
Thickens the broth into a smooth, silky body when cooked with the butter.
Anchovies
Adds a deep savory, salty background flavor that rounds out the fish broth.
Fish
Provides the main flavor and body of the soup as it stews.

The step that matters

Forming the stiff paste with butter and flour. If the flour is not cooked briefly in the melted butter, it stays raw-tasting and can form lumps when liquid is added. Stirring until smooth before adding the broth gives a lump-free, evenly thickened soup.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (basil, winter savory, lemon, thyme, parsley, pepper, butter):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against basil, winter savory, lemon, thyme, parsley, pepper, butter. 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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