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Eel Soup

A soup made with freshwater eels, water, pepper, onion, sweet herbs, soy sauce or ketchup, fried onions, butter, and toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Eel Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Combine eels, water, whole pepper, onion, and sweet herbs in a pot.

  2. Add soy sauce, ketchup, or Cornubian sauce to the pot.

  3. Simmer the soup until half the liquid is reduced.

Finish and serve

  1. Fry the onions in butter until browned.

  2. Add the browned onions and butter to the soup.

  3. Strain the soup into a tureen over the pieces of toasted bread.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

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

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh-water eels
Provide the main protein and rich flavour that the broth is built around.
Butter
Carries the browned onion flavour and adds richness to the finished soup.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth when browned in butter before going into the soup.
Toasted bread
Soaks up the broth and gives the soup body and a crisp-soft texture.

The step that matters

Simmering until half the liquid is reduced. Reducing concentrates the flavours from the eels, herbs and onion; simmering gently keeps the broth clear and avoids a cloudy, overcooked result.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, sauce, butter, bread):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, sauce, butter, bread. 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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