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Eel Soup

A soup made from eels, water, onion, mace, pepper, herbs, bread crust, carrot, and optional cream or flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Eel Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Cut the eels into pieces and place them in a pot.

  2. Add water, onion, mace, whole pepper, sweet herbs, and the crust of bread.

  3. Cover the pot and stew until the fish separates.

  4. Strain the mixture.

Prepare the toast and carrot

  1. Toast slices of bread until deep brown, then cut the toast into triangles or squares.

  2. Cut the carrot into four lengthwise slices.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place the carrot slices in a tureen with the toast.

  2. Pour the strained soup over the toast and carrot.

  3. If desired, add boiling cream thickened with a little flour.

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. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Carrot + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,029 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mace + carrottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Eels
Provide the main flesh and body of the soup as they break down during stewing.
Bread crust
Soaks up and helps thicken the broth as it stews with the fish.
Toasted bread
Soaks up the strained soup, giving a soft, absorbent base in the tureen.
Boiling cream
Adds richness and body to the soup, thickened with flour when used.

The step that matters

Stewing until the fish separates. Cooking gently under a cover lets the eels break down slowly, releasing gelatin and flavour into the broth. Stopping too early leaves a weak soup, while overcooking can make the broth cloudy and muddy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, pepper, bread, carrot, cream, flour):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, pepper, bread, carrot, cream, flour. 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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