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Cat-fish Soup

A savory soup made with catfish, ham, herbs, celery, milk, butter, and egg yolks, served with toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,979 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Cat-fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean catfish and cut each into three pieces.

  2. Cut ham into small pieces and scald in boiling water two or three times to reduce saltiness.

  3. Chop parsley and sweet marjoram together.

Make the soup

  1. Combine catfish, ham, chopped herbs, and pepper in a soup kettle.

  2. Add celery or celery seed and 2 quarts of water.

  3. Cover the soup and boil slowly until everything is tender, skimming frequently.

Finish and serve

  1. Boil 1 quart of milk.

  2. Roll butter in flour, then melt it in the milk.

  3. Pour the hot milk mixture into the soup.

  4. Stir in the beaten egg yolks and bring the soup to a brief boil to cook the eggs.

  5. Remove the celery seed bag.

  6. Serve in a tureen with small squares of toasted bread.

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 + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Marjoram + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together615 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Catfish
Forms the main body of the soup, releasing flavor into the broth as it simmers.
Ham
Adds savory, salty flavor to the broth; scalding first moderates the saltiness.
Egg yolks
Thicken the milk-enriched broth and add richness when gently heated.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and giving the milk-based broth a smooth mouthfeel.
Milk
Adds creaminess and body, mellowing the broth into a rich, smooth soup.

The step that matters

Bringing the soup to a brief boil after adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken when heated but can curdle or turn grainy if overheated. A brief boil cooks them enough to set the soup without scrambling them, so keep it short and watch closely.

Swap the marjoram

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (catfish, ham, parsley, celery, milk, butter, egg):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Marjoramthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against catfish, ham, parsley, celery, milk, butter, 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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