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Catfish Soup

A soup made from catfish, milk, flour, butter, eggs, parsley, and Boston crackers.

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

Catfish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Cover the fish with cold water and stew gently until the flesh slips easily from the bones.

  2. Remove from heat, pick out and discard the bones, then chop the fish.

  3. Strain the cooking liquid and return it to the pot with the chopped fish.

Make the soup

  1. As it boils, stir in the floured butter, seasoning, and parsley; boil for 2 minutes.

  2. Pour the scalding milk over the eggs in a separate vessel.

  3. Combine the milked eggs with the fish soup and serve.

Serve

  1. Line a tureen with the soaked and buttered Boston crackers before pouring the soup over them.

  2. Serve with sliced lemon.

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

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Catfish
Provides the main body and flavor of the soup as the flesh cooks gently in water.
Eggs
Thicken the soup and add richness when combined with the hot milk and broth.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softness to the soup, and softens the crackers when scalded.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the butter-based mixture stirred into the boiling broth, giving the soup body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and carries the flour so it blends smoothly into the soup.
Boston crackers
Soak up the broth and add a soft, bread-like base in the tureen.

The step that matters

Combine the milked eggs with the fish soup. Adding eggs to boiling liquid can scramble them. Tempering the eggs with hot milk first, and combining them gently off the boil, helps keep the soup smooth and thickened.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Cinnamonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against catfish, milk, flour, butter, egg, 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.

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