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Soup

Haddock Souf

A soup of haddock fillets and oysters in a stock made from beef and fish bones, thickened with flour and flavoured with Madeira.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Haddock Souf

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Fillet the haddocks and set the fillets aside.

  2. Combine the bones with the beef and other fish bones to make a stock.

  3. Add the onions, carrot, turnip, and allspice to the stock and boil.

Make the soup

  1. In a separate pan, sweat the butter and ham, then add the sliced herbs.

  2. Stir in enough flour to thicken the soup, then strain the stock into the flour mixture.

  3. Mix smoothly and let it boil for an hour.

  4. Pass the mixture through a tammy, then add the Madeira, pepper, salt, and cayenne.

Fry the haddock and serve

  1. Cut the haddock fillets into 1-inch pieces, remove the skin, and fry them in butter with pepper and salt.

  2. Drain the fried haddock and place it in a tureen, pouring the soup over it.

  3. Add the oysters and their liquor for an improved flavor.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,021 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together445 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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

Haddocks
Provide the main fish flavor and tender flaked texture in the finished soup.
Leg of beef
Adds meaty depth and body to the stock through gelatin released during long simmering.
Butter
Carries fat-soluble aroma from the herbs and ham and enriches the soup's mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the soup so it has a smooth, body-rich texture rather than a watery one.
Large oysters
Contribute briny, savory flavor and their liquor adds extra sea-like seasoning.
Lean ham
Adds salty, savory depth to the base when sweated with the butter.

The step that matters

Mix the flour into the stock smoothly. Flour clumps if added without thorough mixing, leaving lumps that a tammy strain may not fully remove. Stirring it smoothly before and during boiling lets starch grains hydrate evenly and thicken the soup uniformly.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (haddock, beef, fish, onion, carrot, turnip, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, beef, fish, onion, carrot, turnip, butter. 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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