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 ↓
Chicken and Oyster Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the broth
Cut up a full-grown fowl as for frying.
Clean the giblets nicely, and put all in the soup kettle, with just enough water to cover them; let it simmer gently; remove all the scum.
When the chicken is tender, take it up, strain the liquor, and return it to the kettle.
Make the soup
Use a quart of sweet milk to a quart of broth; add boiling water if necessary.
Add a quart of oysters with their juice, and two or three blades of mace, a tablespoonful of butter, one of wheat flour rubbed into the butter, and one gill of hot cream; stew gently five minutes.
Serve
Cream must always be boiled before being put into soup or gravy.
Use the chicken for salad.
Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)
Counts 4 of 5 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
| Ingredient | Portion assumed | kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Milk | 1 cup (244ml) whole | 149 |
| Butter | 1 tbsp (14g) | 102 |
| Oyster | 6 medium (84g) | 81 |
| Cream | 1 tbsp (15ml) heavy | 51 |
| Mace | not in our table | 0 |
One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.
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.
-
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
-
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,184 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
-
Cream + oystertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,886 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
-
Milk + macetop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,346 recipes
Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Oysters
- Give the soup its main flavour and briny taste.
- Sweet milk
- Adds richness and a creamy body to the broth.
- Wheat flour (in the method)
- Thickens the soup slightly when rubbed into the butter.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the soup.
- Hot cream
- Adds richness and smoothness to the finished soup.
The step that matters
Boiling the cream before adding it. Cream added to hot soup can curdle or separate if not first boiled, so boiling it before it goes in helps keep the soup smooth.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, milk, oyster, butter):
- Nutmegfits better
- Cinnamonfits about as well
- Macethe original
- Celeryfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against cream, milk, oyster, butter. 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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