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Catfish Soup

A hearty soup of catfish, ham, parsley, celery, and a milk‑butter roux, finished with beaten eggs and toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Leslie · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Catfish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut off the heads, skin, clean, and cut twelve small catfish into thirds.

  2. Cut the ham into small pieces or thin slices, and scald it two or three times in boiling water to reduce salt.

  3. Chop together a bunch of parsley and some sweet marjoram stripped from the stalks.

Cook the soup

  1. Put the catfish, ham, chopped herbs, and pepper into a soup kettle.

  2. Add a head of celery cut small, or a tablespoon of celery seed tied in muslin.

  3. Add two quarts of water, cover, and boil slowly until the fish and ham are tender, skimming frequently.

Finish and serve

  1. In another vessel, boil a quart of rich milk.

  2. Melt a quarter pound of butter in the milk, then roll it in flour to make a roux.

  3. Pour the hot milk-butter roux into the soup.

  4. Stir in the beaten yolks of four eggs.

  5. Boil briefly again to cook the eggs.

  6. Remove the celery seed bag, add toasted bread cut into small squares, and transfer the soup to a tureen.

  7. Serve the soup.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

336Calories
15 gProtein
25 gFat
14 gCarbs

Counts 5 of 7 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Celery1 stalk (40g)6
Parsley1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)1
Waternot in our table0
Catfishnot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Eliza Leslie. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 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. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Catfish
Forms the main body of the soup, becoming tender as it simmers slowly.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a rich, smooth body to the finished soup.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and smoothing the texture of the soup.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the hot soup and add richness as their proteins set with heat.

The step that matters

Stirring in the beaten egg yolks. Egg yolk proteins set when heated, so the hot soup must be stirred well as the yolks go in to avoid lumps. Boiling only briefly keeps the custard-like texture smooth rather than grainy or curdled.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

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