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Eel Soup

A savory soup made with eels, onions, butter, herbs, and thickened with a butter‑flour paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Winter savory and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 780 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Eel Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Halve the onions and make cross cuts in them.

  2. Melt the butter in a stew pan and add the onions, stirring until lightly browned.

  3. Add the eel pieces and cook for 5 minutes, shaking the pan occasionally.

  4. Pour in the boiling water and remove any scum that forms.

  5. Add the winter savory, lemon thyme, parsley, allspice, and black pepper.

  6. Cover and simmer gently for 2 hours.

  7. Strain the soup and skim off any fat.

Thicken and serve

  1. In a clean stew pan, melt 3 ounces of butter for thickening.

  2. Stir in enough flour to make a stiff paste, then gradually add the strained soup.

  3. Let it simmer for 10 minutes, then pass it through a sieve 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. Winter savory + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together780 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Thyme + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  5. Winter savory + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together287 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Eels
Provide the main protein and rich, savory flavor of the broth.
Onions
Add sweetness and depth of flavor when browned in butter.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor during browning and thickening.
Flour
Forms a stiff paste with butter that thickens the strained soup.

The step that matters

Removing scum after adding the boiling water. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise to the surface; removing it early keeps the broth clear and free of bitter or off flavors.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, winter savory, lemon, thyme, parsley, allspice, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, winter savory, lemon, thyme, parsley, allspice, pepper. 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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