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White Fish Soup

A clear soup made with white fish, celery, onions, bay leaf, and cloves, thickened with milk and cornflour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

White Fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the fish and place it in a pot with the cold water.

  2. Clean the celery and cut it into 1‑inch lengths; peel and quarter the onions.

Make the soup

  1. Add the celery, onions, cloves, and bay leaf to the pot and bring to a boil for 1 hour, skimming off any scum.

  2. Strain the liquid, discarding the bones and seasonings, then return the liquid to the pot and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Mix the milk and cornflour, then add to the soup just before it boils, stirring continuously until it thickens slightly.

  4. Wash and chop the parsley, then sprinkle it over the soup before serving hot.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  3. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 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

White fish
Provides the main body and flavour of the soup as it simmers in the broth.
Milk
Adds richness and a creamy body to the soup.
Cornflour
Thickens the soup as it heats, giving it a slightly thicker texture.

The step that matters

Adding the milk and cornflour mixture. Cornflour thickens only when heated and stirred, and milk can scorch or curdle if it boils hard. Stirring constantly and adding it just before boiling keeps the soup smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, milk, fish, celery, parsley. 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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