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Water Souchy

A fish stew made with water, parsley, root vegetables, and sea salt, served with brown bread and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Water Souchy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. In a stewpan, combine water, chopped parsley, roots, and enough coarse sea salt to make it brackish.

  2. Simmer for 1 hour.

Cook and serve the fish

  1. Add the fish to the simmering water and cook until done.

  2. Remove the fish and let them drain.

  3. In a serving dish, place the fish and strain the cooking liquid over them.

  4. Garnish with finely chopped parsley and sliced roots.

  5. Serve with brown 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 + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Parsley + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
The main protein, cooked gently in the seasoned broth until it turns opaque and flakes.
Roots
Flavour the broth with their natural sweetness as they simmer, and are served as garnish.
Parsley
Adds a fresh, herbal aroma to the broth and garnish.

The step that matters

Cook the fish until done in the simmering water. Fish is delicate and overcooks quickly, so proteins tighten, the flesh dries out and becomes tough and crumbly. Keep the water at a gentle simmer and check for flaking.

Swap the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, carrot, fish, bread, butter):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, carrot, fish, bread, 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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