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Cream Oyster Soup

A soup made with oysters, milk, butter, cracker crumbs, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 Oyster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Drain one can oysters, retaining the liquor.

Make the soup

  1. Put in the double boiler: two quarts rich sweet milk, one tablespoonful butter, one-half cupful fine cracker crumbs, salt to taste.

  2. Pour in the oyster juice, and get scalding hot.

  3. Add the oysters about five minutes before serving.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

317Calories
9 gProtein
21 gFat
23 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Cracker5 saltine crackers (15g)66
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

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. See the original page.

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).

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

What each ingredient does

Rich sweet milk
Forms the base of the soup, giving it body and a creamy, rich texture.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavour and smooths the soup's mouthfeel.
Cracker crumbs
Starch that thickens the milk slightly and gives the soup body.
Oysters (in the method)
Provide the main seafood flavour and tender bite in the finished soup.

The step that matters

Heating the milk without boiling. Milk can scorch or curdle at high heat, and the double boiler keeps it gently hot. Bring it only to scalding, then add the oysters late so they cook briefly and stay tender rather than tough and shrunken.

“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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