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Water Souchy, or Soodjee

A fish broth made with fresh water fish, vinegar, salt, parsley, served with bread and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Water Souchy, or Soodjee

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the fish thoroughly and place it in a stew pan.

  2. Add enough cold water to cover the fish.

  3. Stir in the white wine vinegar and a small amount of coarse sea salt.

Cook

  1. Bring to a boil, skimming carefully.

  2. Once cooked, serve the fish in the broth.

  3. Add boiled parsley roots to the broth.

  4. Garnish with boiled parsley leaves and serve with bread and butter.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Provides the main protein and flavor that gives the broth its body.
White wine vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the broth and helps draw flavor from the fish.
Parsley roots
Contribute earthy, aromatic flavor to the broth as they cook.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil, skimming carefully. Skimming removes the foam and coagulated proteins that rise as the fish cooks. Leaving them in makes the broth cloudy and can give it an unclean taste.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, white wine, vinegar, bread, butter):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, white wine, vinegar, bread, butter. 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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