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Fish Soup

A broth made from fish bones, trimmings, skin, vegetables, herbs, peppercorns, and spice, finished with rice, milk, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine fish bones, trimmings, skin, liquor, vegetables, herbs, peppercorns, and spice in a pot.

  2. Boil for 2 hours.

  3. Strain the mixture.

Finish and serve

  1. Add 1 ounce of boiled rice, 1 teacup of milk, and 1 teaspoon of parsley for each quart.

  2. Small pieces of fish can be added for extra flavor.

  3. Serve immediately.

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. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

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

  3. Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Fish + ricetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together270 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Fish + parsleytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,341 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fish bones, trimmings, and skin
Release gelatin and savoury flavour into the broth as they simmer.
Milk
Adds richness and a mild sweetness that softens the broth.
Boiled rice
Thickens the soup slightly and adds body.

The step that matters

Boil for 2 hours. A long, steady simmer extracts flavour and gelatin from bones and skin. A hard boil can cloud the broth and make it greasy, so keep it at a gentle simmer.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, rice, milk):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, rice, milk. 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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