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Fish Soup

A clear soup made from white fish, vegetables, and a milk-based roux.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Chop and wash the fish, then place it in a saucepan with cold water and salt.

  2. Bring to a boil, skimming off any foam.

  3. Add the washed and chopped vegetables, cloves, and other seasonings.

  4. Simmer for about 1 hour, then strain the soup.

Finish the soup

  1. In a separate pan, melt the fat or butter, stir in the flour to make a roux, and gradually add the milk.

  2. Combine the roux with the strained fish broth and heat through 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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  5. Leek + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together360 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Gives the soup its main flavour as it simmers in the water.
Milk
Adds creaminess and body to the finished soup.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture when cooked with fat into a roux.
Fat or butter
Carries the flour in the roux and adds richness.

The step that matters

Adding the milk to the roux. Adding cold milk gradually while stirring keeps the flour smooth, so lumps do not form and the sauce thickens evenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, leek, carrot, parsley, thyme, celery, clove):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, leek, carrot, parsley, thyme, celery, clove. 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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