Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓
Eel Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Bring 3 quarts of water to a boil in a large pot.
Add the eels and skim the surface.
Add the toasted bread, mace, onions, peppercorns, and herbs.
Reduce heat and simmer gently until the liquid is reduced by half.
For a creamier soup, mix 1 pint of cream with 2 teaspoons of flour until smooth, then stir into the soup before serving.
Serve hot with diced toasted bread.
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.
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Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,057 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,171 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together25,843 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together16,675 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Thyme + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,721 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eels
- Provide the main flesh and rich, savory flavor of the soup.
- Cream
- Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the finished soup.
- Flour
- Thickens the cream so it blends smoothly and gives the soup more body.
- Onions
- Release sweetness and aromatic flavor into the broth as they simmer.
The step that matters
Mixing the cream with flour. Flour stirred into cold cream can clump; mixing it until smooth first lets it disperse evenly, so the thickened cream blends into the hot soup without lumps.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, onion, thyme, parsley, cream, flour):
- Marjoramfits better
- Garlicfits better
- Capersfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, onion, thyme, parsley, 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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