Why it works: Salmon and oyster work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 672 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓
Cheap Fish Soups
Ingredients
Directions
Remove the skin from the conger eel and slice it into thick cutlets.
Stew the fish with vegetables and herbs in water until cooked.
Strain the soup and let it settle, then reheat it.
Add rice and minced parsley, or thicken with rice flour, or serve clear.
For added flavor, include cold fish, crab, lobster, or oysters after simmering.
Optionally, add anchovy sauce, prawns, or shrimps for extra taste.
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.
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Salmon + oystertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together672 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Fish + oystertop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together496 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Scallop + crabtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).
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Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,762 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Fish + salmontop 11% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,078 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the parsley
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, rice, flour, salmon, scallop, crab, oyster):
- Capersfits better
- Turmericfits about as well
- Nutmegfits about as well
- Parsleythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against fish, rice, flour, salmon, scallop, crab, oyster. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
More fish soup recipes
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