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Fish Soupe-maigre

A fish soup with vegetables, egg yolks, and bread, simmered in broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and sorrel work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and 25 recipes mention both. Both carry acetaldehyde, which smells pungent, ethereal. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Also mentioned in the method: flour

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Clean and wash the fish thoroughly.

  2. Stew the fish with carrots, lettuce, leeks, onions, and sorrel in enough water to cover them until everything is soft.

  3. Strain the mixture through a coarse cloth.

  4. Boil the liquid, covered, for 1 hour.

Cook the vegetables

  1. Cut some of the vegetables small and flour them.

  2. Cook the floured vegetables in butter.

  3. Simmer the cooked vegetables in the soup for 1 hour with pepper, salt, and cloves.

Finish and serve

  1. Soften the French roll in good broth.

  2. Mix the egg yolks with a few crumbs, then stir the egg yolk mixture into the soup.

  3. Pour the soup over the softened roll.

  4. Add the pulp of peas and some of the water used to boil them, along with butter, pepper, and salt to adjust consistency.

  5. Stir often and boil until ready to 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Fish + sorreltop 17% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together25 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  2. Lettuce + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Leek + sorreltop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together112 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Lettuce + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together217 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Carrot + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the soup and enrich it into a smooth, creamy texture.
French roll
Soaks up broth to give the soup body and a soft, bread-based texture.
Butter
Cooks the floured vegetables and adds richness and flavor to the soup.
Fish
Gives the broth its main savory flavor as it stews.

The step that matters

Stirring egg yolks into the soup. Adding hot yolks directly can scramble them into lumps. Stirring them in gradually off the heat, while whisking, keeps the soup smooth and thickened.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, carrot, lettuce, leek, sorrel, butter, pepper):

  1. Potatobetter flavor fit
  2. Turnipbetter flavor fit
  3. Spinachbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, carrot, lettuce, leek, sorrel, butter, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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