Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Fish Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Melt the butter in a saucepan.
Cut the fish into small pieces and fry until rich brown.
Simmer
Cover the fish with water and add the carrot, turnip, onion, parsley, salt, and pepper.
Boil slowly for 1 hour.
Mash the mixture gently through a colander and return to the fire.
Serve
Add a little butter and serve over toasted bread or croutons in a tureen.
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.
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Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,002 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together34,122 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,842 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,585 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fish
- Provides the main flavour and body of the soup as it breaks down into the broth.
- Butter
- Adds richness and helps brown the fish while adding a silky finish to the soup.
- Carrot
- Adds gentle sweetness and body to the broth as it softens during simmering.
- Onion
- Contributes savoury depth and aroma to the broth during the long simmer.
The step that matters
Fry the fish until rich brown. Browning the fish through the Maillard reaction builds deeper, roasted flavour in the broth. Pale fish gives a flatter, blander soup, so the colour should be developed before the water is added.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, fish, carrot, turnip, parsley, pepper, bread):
- Leekfits better
- Parsnipfits better
- Shallotfits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, fish, carrot, turnip, parsley, pepper, bread. 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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