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Fish Soup

A soup made from mackerel or haddock, celery, onion, milk, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Skin and fillet the fish.

  2. Place the bones, skin, and trimmings in a saucepan with 2 quarts of cold water and the salt.

  3. Bring to a boil and skim thoroughly.

  4. Add the celery, peppercorns, and onion.

  5. Boil for 1½ hours.

  6. Strain through a sieve.

Make the soup and serve

  1. In a pan, heat the butter until hot.

  2. Add the flour and stir until smooth.

  3. Gradually add the milk and allow to boil for 3-4 minutes.

  4. Add the strained soup and minced parsley if desired.

  5. Add the fish fillets cut into small pieces.

  6. Boil for 8-10 minutes 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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  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

Fish
Provides the main flesh and flavour of the soup, cooked gently in the broth.
Flour
Cooked with the butter to form a roux that thickens the milk and soup.
Milk
Adds richness and body, becoming creamier as it is thickened and simmered.
Butter
Carries the flour in the roux and adds fat for a smooth, rich texture.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma to the stock as it simmers.
Celery
Adds aromatic, savoury flavour to the stock during the long simmer.

The step that matters

Adding the flour to the butter. Stir the flour into the hot butter until smooth before adding milk. Cooking the flour in fat coats the starch granules so they disperse evenly, preventing lumps and giving a smooth thickened base.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, celery, flour, milk, butter, 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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