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Skate Soup

A fish soup made with skate, flounder, eels, and vegetables, finished with cream and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Skate Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Clean the skate, flounders, and eels, and cut them into pieces.

  2. Cover the fish with water and season with mace, pepper, salt, the onion, celery, parsley roots, and sweet herbs.

  3. Simmer for 1.5 hours, covered, then strain the stock.

  4. If making brown soup, fry the fish in butter before adding water.

Finish and serve

  1. To serve, boil the stock with vermicelli just before serving.

  2. Mix the cream with the egg yolks and stir into the soup off the heat.

  3. Serve with a small French roll soaked in the soup.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eels
Give the stock richness and body from their fat and gelatin-rich flesh.
Skate
Adds gelatin from its bones and cartilage, giving the stock body and a savory base.
Flounders
Contribute delicate flavor and gelatin to the stock as they break down while simmering.
Cream
Adds fat for a smooth, rich mouthfeel and softens the flavor of the stock.
Egg yolks
Thicken the soup gently and enrich its texture when stirred in off the heat.
Vermicelli
Adds starch that thickens the broth slightly and gives the soup some bite.

The step that matters

Stirring the cream and egg yolks into the soup. Egg yolks thicken at around 160°F and scramble if the soup is too hot. Removing the pot from the heat first and stirring steadily lets them thicken smoothly without curdling.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, clove, celery, parsley, pepper, cream, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, clove, celery, parsley, pepper, cream, egg. 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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