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Onion Puree with Fish

A fish soup made with a pureed onion base, broth, and egg yolk thickening.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Onion Puree with Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Chop the onions and blanch them.

  2. Melt butter in a saucepan.

  3. Add onions, salt, pepper, and sugar.

  4. Fry until light brown.

  5. Work in the flour.

  6. Moisten with fish broth.

Make the fish broth

  1. Clean the fish and cut it into pieces.

  2. Place the fish pieces in a saucepan with sliced vegetables and parsley.

  3. Add salt, water, and white wine.

  4. Boil for 10 minutes.

  5. Strain the broth.

Finish the soup

  1. Return the onions to the pan and add the broth.

  2. Simmer gently for 30 minutes.

  3. Strain the liquid into another saucepan.

  4. Thicken with egg yolks.

  5. Add the fish fillets and heat through.

  6. Pour into a soup tureen 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

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

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

  5. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Form the bulk of the soup and, once fried until light brown, add sweetness and depth of flavour.
Butter
Fries the onions in fat, adding richness and helping them brown.
Flour
Worked into the fried onions to thicken the soup as it is moistened with broth.
Egg yolks
Stirred into the hot broth to thicken it and give a smooth, rich body.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the fish broth.
Fish
Provides the main protein and flavour of the soup, cooked gently in the broth.

The step that matters

Thicken with egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat. If the soup boils after they are added, they can scramble and turn grainy, so keep the heat low and stir constantly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, sugar, flour, fish, parsley, white wine):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, sugar, flour, fish, parsley, white wine. 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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