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Skate Soup

A fish soup made from skate, stock, vegetables, vermicelli, cream, and egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and celery 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 ↓

Skate Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the skate

  1. Clean the skate and hang it in the open air for a day.

  2. Cut the skate into small fillets and place the trimmings and head in a saucepan with the fish stock or water.

Make the broth

  1. Simmer gently for an hour, removing scum as it rises.

  2. Add the onion, turnip, parsley, and celery, and simmer until the liquid reduces to one quart.

Finish and serve

  1. For the first option, thicken the broth with brown thickening, add the fillets, and simmer until cooked. Flavor with ketchup, sherry, pepper, and salt.

  2. For the second option, add the vermicelli and cook until tender, then mix in the cream beaten with the egg yolk, stirring over low heat for 8-10 minutes without boiling.

  3. Serve the soup very hot.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Skate
Provides the main flesh and flavor of the soup, with the trimmings and head enriching the broth.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky body to the finished soup.
Egg yolk
Thickens the cream mixture gently, giving body without boiling.
Vermicelli
Adds starch and body to the soup as it cooks until tender.
Turnip
Contributes subtle sweetness and body to the simmered broth.

The step that matters

Adding the cream and egg yolk. Egg yolk can curdle and turn grainy if it boils. Stirring over low heat keeps the mixture smooth and thickens it gently.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, turnip, parsley, celery, cream, egg, ketchup):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, turnip, parsley, celery, cream, egg, ketchup. 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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