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Prawn, Cray-fish, or Shrimp Soup

A seafood soup made with fish stock, boiled fish, prawns, crayfish, and shrimp, thickened with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Prawn, Cray-fish, or Shrimp Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Prepare a stock with fish or meat, flavored with onion, parsley, thyme, and black pepper.

  2. To each quart of stock, add a pint or more of boiled fish, saving the shells.

Make the soup

  1. Pound half of the fish with the crumbled roll or panada, moistening with the boiling liquor poured over the shells in a sieve.

  2. Gradually add the seasoned stock with anchovy and lime juice or vinegar.

  3. If the soup is not thick enough, mix in a pat of butter rolled in flour or arrowroot.

  4. Set the soup on the side of the fire and add the remaining chopped fish, crayfish tails, and spawn.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  4. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Provides the main body and flavor of the soup, with pounded fish giving it substance.
Roll or panada
Pounded with fish to bind and thicken the soup for a fuller texture.
Butter and flour or arrowroot
Thickens the soup when it is not thick enough, giving a smoother, richer body.
Anchovy sauce
Adds savory depth to the stock.
Lime juice or vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and flour or arrowroot. Flour or arrowroot must be rolled into the butter and stirred in gradually so it thickens evenly; added in lumps it can leave clumps and an uneven texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, parsley, thyme, pepper, vinegar, anchovy, sauce):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, parsley, thyme, pepper, vinegar, anchovy, sauce. 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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