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Eel Soup, Plain

A simple eel broth thickened with butter and flour, seasoned with parsley, green onions, salt, pepper, and egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 25,843 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Eel Soup, Plain

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In the liquor from boiled eels, add parsley and green onions.

  2. Boil for 10 minutes.

  3. Mix butter and flour to form a thickening, then add it to the soup with salt.

  4. Continue boiling until the raw flour taste is gone.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in white pepper and the beaten egg yolk.

  2. Warm the soup and serve.

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. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Parsley + white peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter and flour
Form a roux-style thickening that gives the soup body.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the soup, adding richness and a smooth texture.
Liquor from boiled eels
Provides the main savory base flavour of the soup.

The step that matters

Continue boiling until the raw flour taste is gone. Flour must cook long enough to lose its raw, pasty taste and to fully thicken the liquid. Stopping early leaves the soup floury-tasting and thinly textured.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, onion, butter, flour, egg):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, onion, butter, flour, 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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