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Eel Soup

A savory soup made with eels, onions, butter, herbs, and thickened with a flour paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Winter savory and thyme 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

Make the broth

  1. In a stew-pan, melt 2 ounces of butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped onions and stir until lightly browned.

  3. Add the pieces of eel and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  4. Pour in 3 quarts of boiling water and bring to a boil, skimming off any scum.

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

  6. Cover the soup and simmer gently for 2 hours.

  7. Strain the broth and skim it.

Thicken and serve

  1. In a clean stew-pan, melt 3 ounces of butter for thickening.

  2. Stir in enough flour to make a stiff paste.

  3. Gradually add the strained broth and let it simmer for 10 minutes.

  4. Pass through a sieve and return the soup to the clean stew-pan.

  5. Add fried fish pieces 10 minutes before serving.

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. Winter savory + thymetop 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
Give the soup its main flavour and body as they cook slowly in the broth.
Onions
Lightly browning them adds sweetness and savoury depth to the broth.
Flour
Thickens the strained broth into a smooth, body-rich soup when cooked in butter.
Butter
Carries flavour and, cooked with flour, forms the roux that thickens the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the strained broth to the flour and butter paste. Adding liquid gradually while stirring keeps the flour dispersed, so the roux thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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