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Flounder Soup

A broth made from flounder, onion, herbs, and served with fried bread and flounder pieces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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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 ↓

Flounder Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Clean the flounders and boil them in enough water to fill a tureen.

  2. Add the onion, thyme, sweet basil, parsley, horseradish, white pepper, and salt; let boil until dissolved.

  3. Slice the stale bread thinly and dip it in the egg yolks.

  4. In a pan, melt some butter and fry the bread on both sides until pale brown.

  5. Strain the soup and add it to the fried bread; let it boil for half an hour.

Fry the flounders

  1. In another pan, heat dripping until boiling.

  2. Dip the flounders in egg yolks and then in bread crumbs; fry them in the dripping until done.

  3. Drain the fried flounders on a plate.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the soup again, fry a few sippets of bread, and dish the soup.

  2. Add the fried flounders and sippets to the soup and 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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Basil + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Parsley + horseradishtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together562 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + horseradishtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Flounders
Provide the main flesh, which becomes tender and flaky as they boil and then fry.
Stale bread
Thickens the broth as it soaks up liquid and gives the fried coating a crisp, golden crust.
Egg yolks
Bind the bread coating to the fish and help it brown evenly when fried.
Horseradish
Adds a sharp, pungent aroma that flavours the broth.

The step that matters

Frying the coated flounders in dripping. The dripping must be hot enough to crisp the coating quickly. If the fat is too cool, the egg and bread coating absorbs oil and turns greasy, and the fish can overcook before the crust sets.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, thyme, basil, parsley, horseradish, bread, egg):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, thyme, basil, parsley, horseradish, bread, 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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