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Soup

Lake and Pond Fish Soup

A soup made by stewing various lake and pond fish with vegetables and herbs, then simmering with seasonal roots and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 23 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Lake and Pond Fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Wash the fish in salt and water.

Make the soup

  1. Stew the fish with the tomato, carrots, leeks, fried onions, and sweet herbs in enough water to cover them until reduced to a pulp.

  2. Strain the liquid and boil it for another hour until smooth.

  3. Prepare seasonal roots by chopping them small and boiling in milk or water.

  4. Add the roots to the soup and let it simmer for 30 minutes.

Season and serve

  1. If using milk, season with mace, celery, and a little cayenne; if using water, season with chili vinegar, soy sauce, mushroom ketchup, or other savoury sauces.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Leek + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Leek + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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

Pike
Firm white flesh that gives the soup its main body and substance.
Carp
Firm flesh and rich gelatin that help thicken the soup as it reduces.
Eels
Rich fat and gelatin that add body and a savoury depth to the broth.
Carrots
Natural sweetness and body that help the stewed mixture break down into a pulp.
Leeks
Mild onion flavour that builds the aromatic base of the stock.
Tomata
Acidity and colour that brighten the stewed fish and vegetables.

The step that matters

Reducing the stewed fish to a pulp and straining it smooth. Stewing must be long enough for the fish and vegetables to break down fully, since incomplete breakdown leaves a coarse texture that straining cannot fully fix.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, leek, onion, fish, milk, celery, vinegar):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, leek, onion, fish, milk, celery, vinegar. 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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