Skip to main content
Main

Cosmopolitan Cookery

A hearty fish and seafood soup made with broth, various fish, lobster, leeks, tomatoes, wine, herbs, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Turbot and fennel work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and 8 recipes mention both. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

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

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare 3 quarts of fish broth with jowls, bones, a slice of conger, and small fish.

  2. Strain the broth through a napkin and skim off the fat.

  3. Clean and cut the fish into pieces, then wipe the fish pieces dry.

  4. Mince the white part of 2 leeks.

Make the soup

  1. Fry the minced leeks in ½ cup of Provence oil over moderate heat.

  2. Add 2 peeled and chopped tomatoes to the leeks.

  3. Add the fish pieces to the leeks.

  4. Moisten the mixture with hot fish broth and ½ bottle of white wine.

  5. Add a bunch of parsley tied with a bay leaf, a pinch of saffron, a sprig of fennel, a small pimento, and the pulp of 2 sliced lemons.

  6. Boil quickly for 12-15 minutes until the fish is cooked and the liquid reduces to a quarter of its volume.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour the soup into a soup tureen.

  2. Remove the fish and lobster with a skimmer.

  3. Debone the fish and lobster.

  4. Return the best pieces to the broth.

  5. Remove the herbs and lemon slices from the broth.

  6. Add the leeks back to the broth.

  7. Serve with toasted slices of bread.

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. Turbot + fenneltop 14% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together8 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Whiting + turbottop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together33 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Parsley + fenneltop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together625 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Turbot + lobstertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together163 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Whiting + lobstertop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together73 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Leeks
Softened in oil, they build the sweet, aromatic base of the soup.
Provence oil
Carries the flavour of the aromatics and fries the leeks, adding richness to the broth.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the broth and balance the fish.
Tomatoes
Add acidity, sweetness and body to the broth.
Lemon pulp
Adds acidity that brightens the broth and sharpens the flavour of the seafood.
Fish
Provides the main flavour and body as it cooks into the broth.

The step that matters

Boil quickly for 12-15 minutes. A rapid boil reduces the liquid to a quarter of its volume, concentrating flavour. Boiling too long toughens the fish, so it must be checked as it cooks until just done.

Flavor stand-ins for the leek

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, whiting, turbot, lobster, tomato, white wine, parsley):

  1. Shallotbetter flavor fit
  2. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  3. Potatobetter flavor fit
  4. Leekthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, whiting, turbot, lobster, tomato, white wine, parsley. 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.

You might also like

Illustration of Tomato SoupIllustrationTomato Soup526 recipesIllustration of Brown BreadIllustrationBrown Bread461 recipesIllustration of Lemon SauceIllustrationLemon Sauce236 recipesIllustration of Lobster SauceIllustrationLobster Sauce174 recipes