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Water Souchy

A fish dish boiled in water, strained, and finished with fish fins and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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

Make the stock

  1. Boil the fish in 1 quart of water until the liquid reduces to about ⅓ quart.

  2. Strain the liquid and remove the fins from four other fish of the same kind.

Finish the sauce

  1. Add the fins to the strained liquid.

  2. Season with salt and cayenne pepper.

  3. Boil until the fish is cooked through, then serve with the sauce.

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

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

  2. Whiting + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together330 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Whiting + peppertop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together374 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Flounders, soles, whitings, or haddocks
Release protein and flavour into the water, giving the liquid its body and savoury taste as it reduces.

The step that matters

Boil until the fish is cooked through. Fish proteins toughen and turn dry when overcooked, and boiling is vigorous, so the fish should be checked and removed once it flakes easily.

“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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