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Fish Soup

A soup made from fresh fish trimmings, rice, onions, milk, and seasonings, simmered for two hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,768 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Ensure all fish trimmings are fresh; wash them in saltwater.

  2. Place fish trimmings, seasoning, mace, and cold water in a saucepan.

  3. Wash the rice and peel the onions, then add them to the saucepan.

Cook and finish

  1. Boil everything together for 2 hours.

  2. Strain the soup through a colander and return it to the pan.

  3. Blend the flour smoothly with a little milk, then stir it into the soup.

  4. Stir until it boils, then add the rest of the milk and chopped parsley.

  5. Bring to a boil again 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. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

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

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

  5. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 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 trimmings
Provide the main flavour base as they simmer slowly in the water.
Rice
Thickens the soup as its starch softens and dissolves during long simmering.
Flour
Thickens the soup when blended smoothly with milk and stirred in before boiling.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma to the broth as they cook down.
Skim milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Blending the flour with milk. Flour added directly to hot liquid forms lumps because its starch clumps before it can disperse. Mixing it smoothly with a little cold milk first lets the starch spread evenly, so it thickens the soup without lumps when it boils.

Swap the mace

The recipe marks mace as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, rice, flour, onion, milk, parsley, clove):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, rice, flour, onion, milk, parsley, 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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