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Water Souchy

A fish soup made with flounder or perch, onions, parsley, and seasonings, simmered in water and wine or vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Water Souchy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the flounders or perch, onions, and parsley.

  2. Prepare additional fish by removing heads, tails, fins, and brown skin.

  3. Cut notches in the fish.

  4. Soak the fish in very cold water.

Make the soup

  1. Boil them in 3 quarts of water until the fish dissolves.

  2. Strain the liquid through a sieve into a kettle or stew-pan.

  3. Add the soaked fish to the stew-pan with the strained liquid.

  4. Season with pepper, salt, and mace.

  5. Add white wine or vinegar.

  6. Boil gently for 15 minutes, skimming as needed.

  7. Boil the sliced parsley roots until very tender.

  8. Remove from heat.

  9. Add the parsley roots and mushroom ketchup.

Serve

  1. Place the fish in a deep dish or tureen and pour the soup gently over them.

  2. Garnish with boiled parsley leaves.

  3. Serve with plates of bread and butter.

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

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

  2. White wine + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Flounders or perch
Form the body of the soup, with the flesh dissolving to give flavour and body to the broth.
White wine or vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the fish broth.
Parsley roots
Soften during simmering and add earthy flavour and body to the soup.

The step that matters

Boil them in 3 quarts of water until the fish dissolves. Boiling must be steady enough to break the fish down into the broth, but not so hard that the liquid turns cloudy or greasy. Skimming during the gentle simmer keeps the soup clear.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, parsley, pepper, white wine, mushroom, ketchup):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, parsley, pepper, white wine, mushroom, 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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