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Fish Soup

A soup made from eels, skate, flatfish, onions, herbs, and spices, simmered until reduced.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean and cut the fish into pieces.

  2. Fry the fish in butter until half-done.

Make the soup

  1. In a large pot, combine the fish with water or meat broth.

  2. Season with cayenne, black pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  3. Add the bundle of sweet herbs and parsley.

  4. Stew for several hours until the liquid reduces to about one-third.

Finish

  1. Meanwhile, fry the coated onions until golden.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Fish + meattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 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

Eels or congers
Firm white flesh that holds its shape and gives body to the soup during long stewing.
Crimped skate
Gelatinous flesh that thickens the broth and adds richness as it breaks down.
Flounders or flat-fish
Delicate white flesh that flakes into the broth and adds mild, sweet flavour.
Onions
Frying until golden adds sweetness and savoury depth to the soup base.

The step that matters

Stew until the liquid reduces to about one-third. Long, gentle simmering draws flavour and gelatin from the fish and bones into the liquid while concentrating it. Stopping too early leaves a thin, weak broth; boiling hard can break the fish apart.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, butter, meat, pepper, parsley, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, meat, pepper, parsley, flour. 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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