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Eel Soup

A soup made from eels, water, bread crust, mace, pepper, onion, sweet herbs, carrot, and toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Eel Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Cut the eels into pieces according to the quantity of soup desired.

  2. In a pot, combine the eels and water.

  3. Add the crust of bread, mace, whole pepper, onion, and sweet herbs.

  4. Cover the pot.

  5. Boil until half the liquid is reduced.

Strain and serve

  1. Strain the soup.

  2. Toast the bread and place it in a dish.

  3. Pour the soup over it.

  4. Set the dish over low heat for a minute before serving hot.

Adjust the soup

  1. If the soup is not rich enough, boil it longer to reduce the liquid.

  2. Add a piece of carrot to enhance the color.

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 + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Mace + carrottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Bread + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 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 flavor of the soup.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma to the broth as it simmers.
Toasted bread
Soaks up the strained soup, giving the dish body and a soft texture.
Carrot
Adds a little natural color to the soup.

The step that matters

Reducing the liquid. Boiling concentrates the broth, so the soup becomes richer in flavor and body. Reducing too little leaves it thin, while reducing too hard can make it overly salty or strong.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

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