Why it works: Fish and sorrel work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and 25 recipes mention both. Both carry acetaldehyde, which smells pungent, ethereal. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: egg, milk, wheat, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Also mentioned in the method: flour
Directions
Prepare the broth
Clean and wash the fish thoroughly.
Stew the fish with carrots, lettuces, leeks, onions, and sorrel in enough water to cover them until everything is soft.
Strain the mixture through a coarse cloth and boil the liquid, covered, for 1 hour.
Add the vegetables
Prepare some of the vegetables, cut them small, flour them, and boil in butter.
Simmer the vegetables in the soup for 1 hour, adding pepper, salt, and cloves.
Finish and serve
Soften the French roll in the broth.
Mix the egg yolks with a few crumbs and stir into the soup.
Pour the soup over the softened roll.
If using peas, add the pulp and some of the cooking water, along with 4 oz. of butter, pepper, and salt to achieve the right consistency. Stir often and boil until ready to serve.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Fish + sorreltop 17% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together25 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
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Lettuce + sorreltop 1% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together317 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Leek + sorreltop 2% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together112 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Lettuce + leektop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together217 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Carrot + peppertop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together14,555 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the soup and add richness as they set gently in the hot broth.
- Carrots
- Add sweetness and body to the broth as they soften during stewing.
- French roll
- Soaks up the broth, giving the finished dish a soft, bread-based texture.
- Onions
- Build savory depth and aroma in the broth during long stewing.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness to the vegetables and the finished soup.
The step that matters
Stirring the egg yolks into the soup. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently but can scramble and turn grainy if the soup is at a hard boil. Stir them in off the heat or at a low simmer so the soup stays smooth.
Flavor stand-ins for the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, carrot, lettuce, leek, sorrel, butter, pepper):
- Potatobetter flavor fit
- Turnipbetter flavor fit
- Spinachbetter flavor fit
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against fish, carrot, lettuce, leek, sorrel, butter, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).
“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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