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Lake and Pond Fish Soup

A soup made from a variety of lake and pond fish, vegetables, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 21 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Lake and Pond Fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Wash the fish in salt and water.

Make the soup base

  1. Stew the fish with the tomato, carrots, leeks, fried onions, and sweet herbs in enough water to cover them until reduced to a pulp.

  2. Strain the liquid and boil it for another hour until smooth.

Finish the soup

  1. Prepare seasonal roots by chopping them small and boiling in milk or water.

  2. Add the boiled roots to the soup and let it simmer for 30 minutes.

  3. If using milk, season with mace, celery, and a little cayenne; if using water, season with chili vinegar, soy sauce, mushroom ketchup, or other savory sauces.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Leek + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Leek + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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

Pike
Firm white fish flesh that breaks down into the body of the soup.
Perch
Lean white fish that adds delicate flavor and flakes into the stock.
Eels
Rich, oily flesh that adds body and savory depth to the soup.
Tomata
Adds acidity and color, and helps the fish stew break down into a pulp.
Leeks
Mild onion-like aroma that builds the savory base of the stock.
Carrots
Adds natural sweetness and body when stewed into the broth.

The step that matters

Stewing the fish until reduced to a pulp. If the fish is not stewed long enough, the flesh stays in pieces and the soup will not thicken or become smooth. Too hard a boil can make the broth cloudy, so keep it at a gentle simmer.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, leek, onion, fish, milk, celery, vinegar):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, leek, onion, fish, milk, celery, vinegar. 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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