You can make this creamy, guest-worthy, restaurant-quality Curried Fish Soup with different types of fish. I chose cod for its mild meatiness. Reheats beautifully, too. One of my best recipes.
Curried Fish Soup
Course: SoupsCuisine: Swedish15
minutes1
hour6 to 8
Ingredients
4 cups chicken stock
4 cups milk
4 Tbs butter
1 med-large Spanish onion, peeled, quartered, and sliced (2½ generous cups)
1 Tbs + 1 tsp curry powder, divided (plus more for garnish)
¼ cup flour
Salt and pepper
1 lb. cod, cut into smallish bite-size pieces
½ cup heavy cream (optional)
Parsley or sour cream, for garnish
Directions
- Heat the stock and milk together over medium heat (setting 4), covered, until hot (15 minutes), and keep it hot without letting it bubble.
- Meanwhile, set a heavy-bottomed, 3-quart, stainless-steel saucepan over moderatly low heat (setting 3). Add the butter, and, when melted, stir in the onions. Cover and cook slowly until the onions are tender and translucent, 7 to 8 minutes.
- Stir in the curry powder. Sauté 1 minute longer, stirring, then blend in the flour. Stir slowly for 3 minutes, to cook the flour without letting it color. Pour in 1 cup of hot liquid all at once, whisking vigorously to blend smoothly. Whisk in 6 more cups.
- Bring to a simmer, stirring, and simmer 20 minutes – stirring frequently-to-constantly to be sure the soup is not scorching on the bottom of the pan. The soup base should be slightly thickened, enough to coat a spoon lighly, or to your liking. Add splashes of liquid as you go if too thick. (You may not need all the remaining liquid, but I usually wind up using all of it.) Correct seasoning with perhaps 1/4-tsp salt, a 1/4 tsp pepper, and the remaining tsp curry.
- Pureé the soup or not, as you wish. (I usually don’t.) Stir in the cod (and the cream) and simmer 2 to 3 minutes. Correct seasoning.
- You can serve the soup immediately if you wish, or let it sit a few minutes and then warm it through. (I think it’s even better that way.) The soup will form a skin as it cools; stir it every 5 minutes or so until cool to avoid it becoming a problem. Decorate each serving with parsley, or sour cream and curry powder.
Notes
- Substitutions: you can change the ratio stock and milk to your liking, even going so far as to use all stock or all milk. For the cod, substitute sole, halibut, trout, hake, sea bass, pollack, or tilapia. For the parsley, a mixture of dill and parsley. For the cream, crème fraîche.
What a delicious, guest-worthy, restaurant-quality soup. Both the fish and the curry are so mild. The soup washes you in a soothing umami that is the food equivalent of settling into a hot bath. It’s buttery, and then finishes with amazing high notes. Seriously, my eyes roll back in my head with every bite.
Social Learning
The soup doesn’t need the cream. It’s plenty creamy without it. But the cream does make it lavish. It also doesn’t explicitly need the parsley garnish, but the parsley tastes so good with the soup!
This soup reheats surprisingly well. The first time I reheated it, I was concerned about overcooking the fish. So, I strained out the solids, microwaved the liquid until piping hot, and then let the solids sit in the hot liquid a minute before serving. Worked just fine. After that, I got lazy and just popped a serving into the microwave as-is. It was still fine. Mind you, this was with cod. Not sure if a substitute fish would take as well to microwave reheating.
Possible Additions
Let me start by saying that this soup is perfect. It needs no additions. It’s perfect as it is. But that doesn’t stop me from imagining.
In the “yes” category: an unbuttered baguette to accompany it: absolutely. White rice: quite good. Although I’ve never tried it, a nice addition might be cauliflower, broken into smaller-than-bite-size pieces – but not too much of it … maybe half or two-thirds as much (by volume) as the fish, and cut into pieces the same size as the fish, or smaller.
In the “no” category: you might right away think croutons or potatoes. They’d knock this soup down a notch, I believe.
Serving Sizes
This soup is – especially if you use the cream – quite filling, so I’d recommend small servings. That’s how you get to eight. Eight servings will probably look meager to you, but especially if this soup were, say, the first course of a more elaborate meal, you’d be glad you had that small serving. It’s probably more likely that you’re going to see this as serving six. Those servings will look to be on the small side of normal, but they will be substantially filling.
If you want to bulk it up, serve it with white rice. Spread a serving of freshly-prepared (or reheated), hot rice evenly over the bottom of the soup bowl, and cover it with a serving of soup. It’s an excellent pairing. If you do this, my feeling is that it makes the baguette less slightly – SLIGHTLY – less attractive, only because now the soup won’t seem as “saucy.”
The Backstory
This recipe comes from Julia Child’s “The Way to Cook,” but the recipe is also mine. Yes, it’s a collaboration between the two of us, Julia and me. That’s because this cookbook explains a “master recipe,” like how to make a velouté for instance, and then gives you options for turning it into a cream-of-whatever soup. Then, it presents ideas for variations; curried fish is a variation of cream of onion soup. My recipe represents the choices I made out of all the options from the velouté, the cream of onion, and the curried fish.
This might be Swedish (or possibly Norwegian). If Julia thought of it as Swedish, or based it on a Swedish idea, she said nothing of it in the book. However, the Swedes make a curried fish soup that is similar to this. I did encorporate some Swedish ideas into some of the substitutions, but I haven’t yet tried them. One of the Swedish recipes I’m came across when prepping this post – fish soup with saffron rouille – seems incredibly interesting, if somewhat involved.
Curried Fish Soup
Credit for images on this page: Make It Like a Man! unless otherwise credited. This content was not solicited by anyone, nor was it written in exchange for anything. Thank you, ⌘+C. References: “Curried Fish Soup” in The Way to Cook, by Julia Child. (New York: Knopf, 1999) p. 11. Also: Klutzy Chef and The Kitchn. Make It Like a Man! is ranked by Feedspot as #15 in the Top 30 Men’s Cooking Blogs.
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C’est une belle soupe
Merci
Thank you, Delphine!
What a beautiful soup: It’s hearty and perfect for our current weather in Chicago. Funny I learned the basics from both Julia Child and Delia Smith. Cannot go wrong with these Grandes Dames! Happy Easter, ~Nessa
Hey, I’m in Chicago, too!
That looks very tasty! I love cod, but might make this one with salmon.
Hmm, that might be really interesting!
I think this soup might be too rich for me. But I’d be willing to give it a try. Take care. Have a good week!
It’s pretty filling, but I didn’t find it to be too rich – but that’s not to say someone else would!
Jeff, this reads so deliciously.
Thank you, Gary!
Your soup is so rich and creamy and totally indulgent. I love the choice of cod, too. That makes enjoying leftovers so much more feasible, since it warms up so well!
Thanks, Heidi!
Yes, the Swedes often do use curry powders in dishes like this – *smile* I was born across the Baltic Sea in Estonia and have a Swedish grandmother 🙂 ! A very filling dish I would not mix with anything bar possibly some sweet-sour or rye bread. I do not know the original recipe but am somewhat surprised at the absence of dill and I am used to using fish stock as a base?
I have a friend who currently lives in Estonia! I’ve been wanting to visit. Yes, fish stock was one of the suggestions, but I didn’t have any, so I went with the options that I did have. And also yes, the Swedish recipes that I read used dill – but I’m not sure if Julia was intending to create and out-and-out Swedish dish. Especially if you used dill, then I could see exactly why you’d want rye bread with this soup!
You and Julia make a great combo, Jeff — and a great soup, to boot. I am saving this to try for after our travels! I love everything about this!
Thanks, David! I was so happy with this soup; I have a feeling you would be, too. Enjoy your travels!
You hung out with Julia Child!? Impressive, sir. 🙂 Seriously, though, this sounds fantastic. As soon as you labeled it guest-worthy AND restaurant-quality, I knew I needed it in my life.
Oh my gosh, David, you will love this soup!
We have passed soup eating weather here, so I am going to bookmark this for fall.
It sounds delicious and I enjoy soup year round, but I am not the only one here and the other half refuses soup once the weather has warmed.
I totally get you on that. Where I live, it’s spring if you go by the fact that the trees are starting to leaf out, but it’s not exactly warm. When it finally turns that corner, I’ll probably stop making soups, too.
Looks delicious, plus interesting that the Swedes use curry in their dishes? Interesting that you also mentioned the Swedes using a seafood recipe with a saffron rouille- I recently posted a French Bouilliabaisse recipe that uses seafood, saffron, and a rouille. It all seems related, yes?
You know, is that weird how those coincidences happen? I’m willing to believe that we all subconciously influence one another, or are influenced by similar things. I’m also willing to believe that we all operate on similar wavelengths, unbeknownst to us consciously. But I’m also willing to believe in coincidences. 🙂
Generally I’m not a huge fan of curry (i.e., extremely rarely cook with it), but I’d certainly order this fish soup – it looks so creamy and hearty!
I used a mild curry, and I also found that regardless, the curry flavor in the soup was also farily mild. It dish a little more “French” than what I thought it might be.
Jeff, your Curried Fish Soup is proof simple is best. A few quality ingredients and you have an enjoyable meal. Cheers to you and Julia Child.
Velva
Thank you!
Looks very tasty! I can almost feel the taste in my mouth…
Thank you, Javier!
Molto invitante questa zuppa, bravissimo!!!
Thanks!
Una deliciosa sopa y muy diferente a todas las que yo preparo. Me encantan todos los ingredientes. La probaré. Gracias
Thank you, Pilar! I hope you enjoy it.