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A savory fish soup made with anchovy essence, lobster spawn, salmon flakes, and stock, thickened with flour or arrowroot and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Broths and Soups

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Pound and mix the essence of anchovy, lobster spawn, flour or arrowroot, and egg yolks until well combined.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a stew pan with a little clear stock.

  3. Gradually stir in more stock until the soup reaches the desired thickness.

Season and finish

  1. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt, and add herbs, cayenne, sugar, and lemon juice if desired.

  2. Pass the soup through a large-holed colander, then add the reserved salmon flakes and bring to a boil.

  3. Serve with bread, either in browned dice or broken from rolls.

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

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

  2. Anchovy + lobstertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Anchovy + vealtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together456 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

What each ingredient does

Essence of anchovy
Provides the savoury, salty flavour that defines the soup.
Flour or arrowroot
Thickens the soup so it becomes a smooth, body-rich liquid.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the soup as they are thickened with heat.
Lobster spawn
Adds a rich, briny seafood flavour and a coral colour.
Clear stock
Forms the liquid base and adjusts the final thickness and volume.

The step that matters

Thickening with stock. Adding stock gradually while stirring keeps the flour or arrowroot and egg yolks dispersed, preventing lumps and a grainy texture in the finished soup.

“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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