Name: Razor-fish Soup
Ingredients: 2 lb razor-fish; 1 tablespoon oil or 1 oz butter; 1 pint water or 1½ pints milk; Salt to taste; Pepper to taste; Toasted bread or vermicelli

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Razor-fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

Wash the razor-fish thoroughly.
Place the razor-fish in a saucepan over low heat until they open.
Remove the fish from their shells.

Make the soup

Heat the oil or butter in another saucepan.
Fry finely chopped parsley in the heated oil or butter until brown.
Add water or milk to the saucepan and bring to a boil.
Add the fish, salt, and pepper, and let it boil for another 30 minutes.

Serve

Serve with toasted bread or boiled vermicelli.

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,668 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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

Razor-fish: Provides the main protein and the flavour base of the soup.
Oil or butter: Carries the parsley and adds richness and fat to the broth.
Milk or water: Forms the liquid base of the soup, which becomes creamier with milk.

“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.