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Stock for White or Brown Fish Soup

A stock made from eels, flounders, skate, celery, parsley roots, onion, sweet herbs, pepper, salt, mace, and optional liquor from potted fish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley 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 ↓

Stock for White or Brown Fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Cut the eels into 1½ to 2-inch pieces.

  2. Cut up the flounders and skate.

Make the stock

  1. Place fish in a pan and cover with water.

  2. Add celery, parsley roots, onion, and sweet herbs.

  3. Season with pepper, salt, and mace.

  4. Cover and simmer for 1 hour and 45 minutes.

  5. Strain the stock for use.

Brown soup variation

  1. For brown soup, fry the fish in butter before adding to the stock.

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

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

English eels
Provide the main body and rich flavour of the stock.
Flounders
Add delicate fish flavour and body to the stock.
Skate
Adds gelatin-rich body, giving the stock a fuller texture.
Celery
Contributes savoury, aromatic flavour to the simmering liquid.
Parsley roots
Add earthy, aromatic depth to the stock.

The step that matters

Simmering the stock gently. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer for the full time extracts flavour and gelatin from the bones and skin while keeping the stock clear. A hard boil clouds the liquid and can make it greasy and cloudy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, celery, parsley, onion, clove, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, celery, parsley, onion, clove, pepper. 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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