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Crayfish Soup

A soup made from crayfish shells, butter, anchovies, stock, and a French roll crumb, finished with lobster spawn.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Crayfish and lobster work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 100 recipes. Both carry octanal, which smells fat, soap. The science ↓

Crayfish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shell the crayfish and set the fish aside between two plates.

Make the soup

  1. Pound the shells in a mortar with the butter and anchovies until well beaten.

  2. Add 1 pint of stock and simmer for 30 minutes.

  3. Strain through a fine sieve and add the remaining stock and the crumb of the roll.

  4. Bring to a boil and rub through a tammy with the lobster-spawn.

  5. Add the fish but do not let the soup boil after straining.

  6. Adjust seasoning if necessary.

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. Crayfish + lobstertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together100 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  2. Crayfish + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together343 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  3. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Crayfish + fishtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together90 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  5. Lobster + fishtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together326 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Crayfish
Provides the main flavour and the tender fish added at the end.
Butter
Carries the flavour from the pounded shells and adds richness to the soup.
Anchovies
Add a salty, savoury depth that rounds out the shellfish flavour.
French roll crumb
Thickens the soup slightly and gives it body.
Stock
Forms the liquid base that carries all the flavours.

The step that matters

Do not let the soup boil after straining. Once the fish is added, boiling toughens its protein and makes it dry and stringy, so the soup should stay below a boil.

“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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