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Eel Soup

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and winter savory 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

Prepare the soup

  1. In a stew pan, melt 2 ounces of butter and brown the sliced onions.

  2. Add the cleaned eels and cook for 5-6 minutes, shaking them over the fire.

  3. Pour in 3 quarts of water and add the crust of bread.

  4. Bring to a boil and skim the surface.

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

  6. Cover the stew pan and let the soup simmer for 2 hours.

  7. Strain the soup through a fine sieve.

Thicken and serve

  1. In a clean stew pan, melt 2 ounces of butter slowly.

  2. Mix in enough flour or fine oatmeal to form a stiff paste.

  3. Gradually add the strained soup to the paste, stirring well.

  4. Let it simmer for 10-12 minutes.

  5. Serve in a soup tureen with toasted bread squares.

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. Thyme + winter savorytop 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 flesh and rich, savory flavor of the soup.
Butter
Browns the onions and, with flour or oatmeal, forms a thickening roux that gives body.
Onions
Browning them in butter adds sweetness and savory depth to the broth.
Flour or fine oatmeal
Forms a stiff paste with butter that thickens the strained soup.
Bread crust
Adds body and helps lightly thicken the broth as it simmers.

The step that matters

Thickening the strained soup with the butter paste. Adding the soup too quickly or without stirring can leave lumps of flour or oatmeal. Adding it gradually while stirring disperses the starch so it thickens smoothly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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