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Water Souchy

Water Souchy is a Dutch fish soup made with flounder or perch, parsley, wine or vinegar, and seasoned with pepper, salt, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Leslie · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 14 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 ↓

Water Souchy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fish stock

  1. Cut up four flounders, or half a dozen perch, two onions, and a bunch of parsley.

  2. Put them into three quarts of water, and boil them till the fish go entirely to pieces, and dissolve in the water.

  3. Strain the liquor through a sieve.

  4. Put it into a kettle or stew-pan.

Cook the fish and soup

  1. Prepare a few more fish with heads, tails, and fins removed, and brown skin taken off.

  2. Cut little notches in them, and lay them for a short time in very cold water.

  3. Put the fish into the stew-pan with the liquor or soup-stock of the first fish.

  4. Season with pepper, salt, and mace, and add half a pint of white wine or two table-spoonfuls of vinegar.

  5. Boil it gently for a quarter of an hour.

  6. Skim it well.

  7. Provide some parsley roots, cut into slices, and boil till very tender.

  8. Provide a quantity of parsley leaves and boil until nice and green.

  9. After the fish-pan has boiled for fifteen minutes, take it off the fire.

  10. Put the parsley roots into the fish-pan; also add a little mushroom catchup.

Serve

  1. Take out the fish and lay them in a broad deep dish, or in a tureen.

  2. Pour the soup very gently over the fish to avoid breaking them.

  3. Strew the green parsley leaves over the top.

  4. Have ready plates of bread and butter, which is customary to eat with water souchy.

  5. If desired, omit the wine or vinegar, and flavor the soup just before taking it from the fire with essence of anchovy or other fish sauces.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

84Calories
2 gProtein
0 gFat
14 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 9 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Wine2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)25
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Allspice1 tsp ground (1.9g)5
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Parsley1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)1
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0
Macenot 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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flounders
Firm white fish that breaks down into the body of the stock and gives the soup its flavor.
White wine
Adds acidity and brightness that balances the rich fish stock.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the flavor of the soup.
Parsley roots
Soften during simmering and add a mild, earthy flavor to the broth.

The step that matters

Boil the fish stock until the fish breaks down. Simmering the fish long enough releases its gelatin and flavor into the water, giving the soup body. Boiling too hard can cloud the liquor and break the fish apart before it is ready.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, white wine, pepper, allspice, onion, vinegar):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, white wine, pepper, allspice, onion, vinegar. 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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