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Eel Soup

A soup made with eels, broth, vegetables, herbs, milk, and egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Eel Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the eels

  1. Cook the eels in boiling water with vinegar, carrot, onion, parsley, pepper, and salt for 20 minutes.

  2. Remove the eels from the pot.

Make the soup

  1. Mix half of the broth with white stock, then add sliced boiled carrot, cooked peas, thyme, and marjoram, and mix thoroughly.

  2. Add hot milk and egg yolk.

  3. Pour the mixture over the eels in a soup tureen.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Eels
Provide the main body and flavour of the soup.
Egg yolk
Thickens the soup and adds richness through its proteins and fat.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the flavour of the broth.
Vinegar
Adds a mild acidity that brightens the broth and helps firm the eels.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk. Egg yolk thickens when heated gently but can curdle or turn grainy if the soup boils after it is added. Add the hot milk and yolk off the heat or over very low heat, stirring steadily.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, carrot, onion, parsley, pepper, thyme, marjoram):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Black-eyed peafits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, carrot, onion, parsley, pepper, thyme, marjoram. 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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