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Crayfish Soup

A soup made from crushed crayfish shells, butter, anchovies, fish stock, and bread crumbs, finished with crayfish meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Crayfish and lobster work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 100 recipes. Both carry octanal, which smells fat, soap. The science ↓

Crayfish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Remove the meat from the crayfish and set it aside on a plate.

  2. Crush the shells in a mortar with the butter and anchovies until well pounded.

  3. Combine the crushed mixture with 1 quart of stock in a stewpan.

  4. Bring the mixture to a boil and simmer for 1 hour.

  5. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve back into the stewpan.

Finish the soup

  1. Add 3 pints of stock and the crumb of 2 French rolls to the stewpan.

  2. Bring the soup to a boil.

  3. Remove from heat.

  4. Rub the soup through a tammy (fine sieve).

  5. If using, pound the lobster spawn and mix it into the soup.

  6. Return the soup to the pot to keep warm, but do not let it boil again.

  7. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed.

  8. Add the crayfish meat to the soup just 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. Crayfish + lobstertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together100 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  2. Crayfish + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together343 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  3. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Crayfish + fishtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together90 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  5. Fish + lobstertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together326 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Crayfish
Provides the main shellfish flavour and the tender meat added at the end.
Butter
Carries the flavour of the crushed shells and adds richness to the soup.
Anchovies
Adds a salty, savoury depth that rounds out the seafood flavour.
Fish stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries all the flavours.
French rolls
Their crumb thickens the soup and gives it a smoother body.

The step that matters

Do not let the soup boil again after straining. Once the soup is enriched and thickened, boiling can cause it to separate or curdle and dull its delicate flavour, so it should only be kept warm.

“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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