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Eel Soup

A savory eel soup with onion, carrot, pepper, and sago.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and carrot 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 ↓

Eel Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eel and onion

  1. Melt the dripping in a frying pan over medium heat.

  2. Fry the onion until pale brown.

  3. Add the eel pieces.

  4. Fry the eel pieces for a few minutes on both sides.

  5. Transfer the eel and onion to a stew pan.

Make the soup

  1. Add the clove, peppercorns, parsley, carrot, and water.

  2. Bring to a boil.

  3. Add pepper and salt.

  4. Skim occasionally.

  5. Simmer for 30 minutes.

  6. Stir in the sago.

  7. Simmer for another 30 minutes.

  8. Stir until the sago swells.

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 + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  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. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Eel
Provides the main protein and rich flavour that the soup is built around.
Dripping
Fat for frying that carries flavour and helps brown the onion and eel.
Onion
Sweetens and deepens the broth as it turns pale brown in the fat.
Sago
Swells as it cooks, thickening the broth and giving it body.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness and aroma to the broth during simmering.

The step that matters

Skim occasionally. Skimming removes foam and loose impurities that rise during simmering, keeping the broth clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, parsley, carrot, 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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