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Potage Anglais De Poisson a Lady Morgan

A French fish soup made with turbot, sole, eel, truffles, Champagne, and assorted aromatics, finished with quenelles and oysters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 26 ingredients
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Why it works: Turbot and leek work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 12 recipes mention both. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, fish, shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the broth

  1. Remove the fillets from the turbot, sole, and eel.

  2. Cut the trimmings into pieces.

  3. In a medium saucepan, combine the fish trimmings, Champagne, lemon juice, truffle trimmings, turnip, onions, carrot, celery root, leeks, bay leaf, thyme, basil, rosemary, marjoram, nutmeg, cayenne pepper, cloves, anchovies, and salt.

  4. Simmer this mixture for 1 hour.

  5. Strain it through a fine sieve into a good veal consommé.

Prepare the fish and quenelles

  1. Sauté the fillets of turbot, sole, and eel.

  2. Cut them into small scallops.

  3. Prepare a quenelle mixture with the large whiting and crayfish butter.

  4. Form small quenelles with a teaspoon.

  5. Poach the quenelles in the consommé.

Assemble and serve

  1. Cut the cooked truffles into 1-inch pieces.

  2. Slice them into scallops ¼ inch thick.

  3. Drain the quenelles.

  4. Place them in a soup tureen with the fish scallops, drained on a towel, along with the truffles, mushrooms, and prepared oysters.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Turbot + leektop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together12 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together10,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Turnip + leektop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + carrottop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together8,001 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Lemon + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Whiting
Its lean flesh, worked into a mixture, sets into tender, light quenelles.
Champagne
Adds acidity and aromatic complexity to the broth as it simmers.
Lemon juice
Adds brightness, balancing the richness of the fish and butter.
Truffle trimmings
Lend an earthy, intensely aromatic flavour to the broth.
Crayfish butter
Adds fat and richness to the quenelle mixture, keeping it moist.

The step that matters

Poach the quenelles gently. Poaching in barely simmering consommé lets the delicate whiting mixture set gently. A rolling boil can make the quenelles break apart or turn tough and rubbery.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turbot, champagne, lemon, truffle, turnip, carrot, celery):

  1. Leekbetter flavor fit
  2. Asparagusbetter flavor fit
  3. Shallotbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turbot, champagne, lemon, truffle, turnip, carrot, celery. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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