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Soup

Cream of Oysters

A creamy oyster soup made with oysters, milk, butter, flour, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cream of Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the oysters

  1. Put the oysters with their liquor in a clean saucepan over medium heat.

  2. When the oysters are just about to boil, remove them from the heat.

Make the cream

  1. In another saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the flour to make a roux.

  2. Gradually add the milk to the roux, stirring constantly until thickened.

  3. Add the oysters and their liquor to the thickened milk mixture.

  4. Season with salt to taste and serve hot.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Oyster + milktop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,933 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main flavor and tender bite of the soup, releasing their liquor into the cream.
Milk
Forms the creamy base that thickens with the roux and carries the oyster flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor, and fats the flour so it forms a smooth roux.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, body-giving sauce when cooked with butter.

The step that matters

Stirring the milk into the roux. Adding milk gradually while stirring constantly keeps the flour suspended so the sauce thickens smoothly without lumps.

“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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