Skip to main content
Main

Fish Soup

A clear broth made from soles, stock, herbs, and spices, served with fish pieces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and celery 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 fish

  1. Skin and fillet the soles.

  2. Cut the fillets into pieces the size of a penny.

Make the stock

  1. In a saucepan, combine the head bones and trimmings of the soles, stock, parsley, celery, onion, mace, pepper, and salt.

  2. Boil slowly for 3 to 4 hours.

  3. Skim and strain the liquid.

  4. Return the strained liquid to the fire.

  5. Bring the liquid to a boil.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the cut pieces of sole.

  2. Cook until done.

  3. Remove the sole pieces.

  4. Place the cooked sole pieces in a soup tureen with a little blanched chopped parsley.

  5. Strain the soup into the tureen.

  6. 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. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Soles
Provide the delicate white flesh that cooks into tender pieces and flavour the soup.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries the flavour of the other ingredients.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma to the broth as it simmers.
Celery
Contributes aromatic, savory depth to the broth during long simmering.

The step that matters

Boil slowly for 3 to 4 hours. A gentle simmer extracts flavour from the bones and trimmings without clouding the broth. A rolling boil emulsifies fats and proteins, making the soup cloudy and harsher in taste.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, celery, onion, clove, pepper. 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.

More fish soup recipes

White 9Lake and Pond 6Water Soucy 6Brown 4Clear 3Russian 3 See all 129 →

You might also like

Cream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCelery StewCelery Stew25 recipesCelery CroquettesCelery Croquettes16 recipesCelery Cream SoupCelery Cream Soup15 recipes