Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Cheap Fish Soups
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fish
Remove the skin from the conger eel and slice it into thick cutlets.
Simmer the fish in water until cooked, then strain and allow to settle.
Finish the soup
Reheat the strained soup and add rice and minced parsley if desired.
Thicken the soup with rice flour or serve it clear.
Add flakes of cold salmon, cod, or other seafood if available.
Simmer large oysters in the soup for flavor, adding softer portions after a few minutes.
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.
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Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,057 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Oyster + anchovytop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together603 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Fish + oystertop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together496 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together637 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Oyster + shrimptop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together531 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Conger eel
- Provides the main body of fish flavor and the flaked meat of the soup.
- Rice flour
- Thickens the strained broth so it becomes a body-rich soup rather than a clear one.
- Rice
- Adds starch and bulk, softening in the hot broth to make the soup more filling.
- Large oysters
- Contribute a briny, savoury seafood aroma and flavour to the broth.
The step that matters
Simmer the oysters in stages. Oysters overcook quickly and turn rubbery when boiled too long. Adding the softer portions after a few minutes lets each piece cook gently and keeps the texture tender.
Swap the parsley
The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, rice, flour, oyster, anchovy, sauce, shrimp):
- Capersfits better
- Turmericfits about as well
- Parsleythe original
- Celeryfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against fish, rice, flour, oyster, anchovy, sauce, shrimp. 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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