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Fish Bisque

A creamy fish soup made with fish stock, minced fish, butter, flour, parsley, milk, bread crumbs, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Fish Bisque

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Strain the fish stock through a cloth and season with pepper and salt.

  2. Heat the stock to boiling, then add the minced fish and simmer for five minutes.

  3. In a small bowl, mix the butter and flour together until smooth.

  4. Stir the butter-flour mixture and minced parsley into the soup.

Thicken and serve

  1. In another vessel, combine the hot milk with the dry bread crumbs and baking soda.

  2. Mix the milk mixture into the soup, stirring well, and simmer for one minute.

  3. Serve hot with sliced lemon and crackers.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 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

Fish stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries the flavor of the fish.
Cooked fish
Provides the main body and flavor of the bisque as it simmers in the stock.
Butter and flour
Mixed together to form a roux that thickens the soup and adds richness.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softness, mellowing the savory fish flavor.
Dry bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help thicken the soup further, giving it body.
Baking soda
Raises the pH slightly, which helps the bread crumbs and milk blend smoothly into the soup.

The step that matters

Mixing the milk and bread crumb mixture into the soup. Stirring well while adding the milk mixture keeps it from clumping or curdling. Simmering only briefly afterward avoids over-thickening or breaking the soup.

“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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