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Water Souchet

A clear fish broth with vegetables, lemon, and parsley, served with bread and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Water Souchet

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Wash the fish bones in cold water and remove any black substance.

  2. Place the bones in 2 quarts of cold water with 1 teaspoon of salt and bring to a boil.

  3. Skim off the scum, then add the peppercorns, carrot, turnip, onion, celery, and herbs.

  4. Boil for 1 hour, then strain through a fine sieve and return the liquid to the saucepan.

  5. Wash the boiled vegetables, slice them, and add them back to the liquid.

Finish and serve

  1. Cut the fish fillets into small pieces and add them to the saucepan; simmer for 30 minutes.

  2. Stir in lemon juice, pour into a tureen, and garnish with chopped parsley.

  3. Serve with brown bread, butter, and a lemon.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fish fillets
Provide the main protein, which cooks through and flakes into the soup during simmering.
Fish bones
Release gelatin and flavor into the water, giving the stock body and a savory base.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and aromatic depth to the stock.
Onion
Contributes savory depth and aroma as it simmers in the stock.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the savory stock.

The step that matters

Skim off the scum. Proteins and impurities rise to the surface as the water heats. Removing them before adding flavorings keeps the stock clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, carrot, turnip, celery, lemon, parsley, bread):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, carrot, turnip, celery, lemon, parsley, bread. 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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