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Catfish Soup

A soup made with catfish, bacon, onion, parsley, and a thickened egg yolk mixture.

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 ↓

Catfish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, combine the catfish, bacon, onion, parsley, salt, pepper, and enough water to cover the ingredients.

  2. Stew until the fish is tender but not broken.

Thicken and serve

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks and mix in the butter, flour, and milk.

  2. Warm the mixture and add it to the soup to thicken.

  3. Remove the bacon from the pot, place some fish in a tureen, pour in the soup, and serve.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the soup as they set gently with heat, giving it a richer body.
Flour
Stabilises the egg and milk mixture so it thickens smoothly without curdling.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavour and gives the enriched mixture a smooth texture.
Milk
Adds liquid and richness that blends with the yolks to form a creamy thickening.
Bacon
Releases smoky, salty fat into the pot that flavours the broth.

The step that matters

Warm the mixture and add it to the soup to thicken. Egg yolks scramble if they get too hot or are added directly to boiling liquid. Warm the mixture gently and stir in a little hot soup first, so it thickens smoothly instead of curdling.

Swap the onion

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

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

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