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Eel Soup

A soup made by stewing eels with water, bread crust, mace, pepper, onion, sweet herbs, optional carrot, cream, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Eel Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Clean the eels and place them in a pot with water, bread crust, mace, pepper, onion, and sweet herbs.

  2. Cover and stew until the fish is completely broken down.

  3. Strain the mixture to remove solids.

Finish and serve

  1. Toast bread and cut it into dice.

  2. Pour the boiling soup over the toasted bread.

  3. For a richer soup, mix cream with flour and add it 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. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,029 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mace + carrottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Eels
Break down during stewing to give the soup its body and fish flavour.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the finished soup.
Flour
Mixed with cream, it thickens the soup slightly and helps keep the cream from separating.
Bread
Toasted dice soak up some broth, adding texture and a toasted flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the cream and flour. Cream mixed with flour and stirred into hot soup helps it stay smooth. If it is added to a boiling soup or left to boil, the dairy can curdle or separate, so keep it below a boil.

Swap the carrot

The recipe marks carrot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, mace, pepper, onion, cream, flour):

  1. Leekfits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, mace, pepper, onion, cream, flour. 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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