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Catfish Soup

A soup made with catfish, bacon, onion, parsley, and a thickening mixture of egg yolks, butter, flour, and milk.

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. Combine catfish, bacon, onion, parsley, salt, and pepper in a pot.

  2. Add enough water to cover the ingredients and stew until the fish is tender but not broken.

Thicken and serve

  1. Beat the egg yolks in a bowl, then mix in butter, flour, and milk.

  2. Warm the mixture.

  3. Add the warmed mixture to the soup to thicken.

  4. Remove the bacon.

  5. Place some fish in a tureen and pour the soup over the fish.

  6. 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

Catfish
Forms the main body of the soup and becomes flaky and tender when stewed gently.
Egg yolks
Thicken the soup and add richness when gently heated with the milk mixture.
Flour
Helps thicken the liquid, giving the soup a smoother body.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess, softening the flavor of the broth.
Bacon
Lends smoky, savory flavor to the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Adding the warmed egg mixture to the soup. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if they get too hot or are added directly to boiling liquid. Warming the mixture gently and blending it in slowly helps the soup thicken smoothly.

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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