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Oyster Soup

A creamy oyster soup made with oysters, water, onions, ham, flour, cream, egg yolks, and optional thyme.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and thyme are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 11,585 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Oyster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. In a large pot, combine the washed oysters, water, chopped onions, ham, pepper, and salt.

  2. Boil until the liquid is reduced by half, then strain through a sieve.

  3. Return the liquid to the pot and add the fresh oysters.

  4. Boil until the fresh oysters are cooked through.

Thicken and serve

  1. Thicken the soup by whisking in the flour, cream, and beaten egg yolks.

  2. Boil for a few minutes, ensuring it does not curdle and the flour is lump‑free.

  3. Serve with the last oysters added, and add thyme if desired, but do not boil long enough to discolor the soup.

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. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Oyster + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together360 recipes

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

  5. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together4,103 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main flavour and body of the soup, releasing their briny taste into the broth.
Flour
Thickens the soup as its starch gelatinises when heated, giving it body.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup as they set gently with heat, adding richness.
Cream
Adds fat and smoothness, softening the flavour and giving a silky texture.
Onions
Build savoury sweetness and aromatic depth in the broth as they cook.
Ham
Adds salty, smoky meaty flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

Thickening with egg yolks. Egg yolks set at low temperatures and can curdle or turn grainy if the soup boils after they are added. Keeping it just below a boil keeps the texture smooth.

Flavor stand-ins for the thyme

The recipe marks thyme as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, onion, ham, pepper, flour, cream, egg):

  1. Nutmegbetter flavor fit
  2. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  3. Capersbetter flavor fit
  4. Thymethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, onion, ham, pepper, flour, cream, egg. 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.

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