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Fish Soup

A simple soup made with fish, onion, parsley, and a light broth thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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

Make the broth

  1. In a pot, combine the fish, head or tail, sliced onion, salt, and parsley with 2 cups of cold water.

  2. Boil until the fish is soft, skimming off any scum.

Thicken and finish

  1. In a separate saucepan, mix 1 teaspoon of flour with a little of the broth and bring to a boil.

  2. Strain the remaining broth into the flour mixture, adding chopped parsley and small pieces of fish.

  3. Bring to a boil, then add a dash of cayenne pepper and 2 teaspoons of milk. Do not boil again.

  4. If using, stir in the egg yolk just before serving.

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

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

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

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Provides the main body of flavour and protein for the soup.
Flour
Thickens the broth slightly, giving it a fuller body.
Egg yolk
Enriches the soup and adds richness when stirred in at the end.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness to the soup.

The step that matters

Do not boil again after adding the milk. Milk can curdle and separate when kept at a rolling boil, which spoils the smooth texture of the soup. Heating it gently keeps it creamy.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, parsley, flour, pepper, milk, egg. 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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