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Eel- Soup

A soup made from unskinned eels, water, bread, mace, pepper, onion, sweet herbs, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Eel- Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Separate the heads from the eels and cut the bodies into short lengths.

Make the soup

  1. Boil the eels in water with bread, mace, pepper, onion, and sweet herbs in a covered stew-pan until broken.

  2. Strain the soup and pour it boiling hot over the toasted bread.

  3. Season with parsley 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Mace + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

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

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 rich flavour of the soup.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth.
Toasted bread
Soaks up the hot broth, giving the soup body and a soft texture.

The step that matters

Boil the eels until broken. Simmering in a covered pan keeps the liquid from evaporating while the eel proteins and collagen soften and release flavour into the broth. Stopping too early leaves the flesh firm and the soup thin; boiling too hard can make the broth cloudy.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, onion, parsley. 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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