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Potage Dupoise, or Mussel Soup

A mussel soup made with fish stock, butter, flour, parsley, spices, cream, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Potage Dupoise, or Mussel Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the mussels as for dressed mussels.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan over medium heat.

  2. Add the flour to the melted butter and mix well.

  3. Pour in the fish stock and stir continuously until it boils.

  4. Add parsley, sugar, cayenne, salt, and mignonette pepper.

  5. Stir in the cream and a few drops of lemon juice.

Serve

  1. Serve hot, ensuring the mussels are added just before serving.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Melts with the flour to form a roux that thickens the soup and adds richness.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth, lightly body-rich soup when cooked with the butter.
Fish stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries the seasoning flavours.
Mussels
Provide the main seafood flavour and texture of the soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow body to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Pour in the fish stock and stir continuously until it boils. Adding liquid to a roux can form lumps if not stirred constantly. Continuous stirring disperses the flour evenly so the soup thickens smoothly as it comes to the boil.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, butter, flour, sugar, pepper, lemon, cream):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Cardamomfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, flour, sugar, pepper, lemon, cream. 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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