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Oyster Soup

A creamy oyster soup made with white stock, cream, butter, flour, and seasoned with salt, cayenne, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and oyster are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,886 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Oyster Soup

8 persons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Scald the oysters in their own liquor.

  2. Take them out, beard them, and put them in a tureen.

Make the broth

  1. Take a pint of the stock, put in the beards and the liquor, which must be carefully strained, and simmer for ½ an hour.

  2. Take it off the fire, strain it again, and add the remainder of the stock, with the seasoning and mace.

  3. Bring it to a boil, add the thickening of butter and flour, simmer for 5 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the boiling cream, pour it over the oysters, and serve.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

138Calories
10 gProtein
8 gFat
6 gCarbs

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
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Oyster6 medium (84g)81
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Macenot in our table0

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

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. Cream + oystertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,886 recipes

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

  2. Cream + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,009 recipes
  3. Oyster + macetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,910 recipes

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 texture of the soup.
White stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the soup's flavour.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow body to the finished soup.
Butter and flour (in the method)
Form a thickening that gives the broth body.

The step that matters

Adding the cream. Cream that is boiling hot can curdle or separate if it is added carelessly, so it should be stirred in gently just before pouring over the oysters.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, oyster):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Macethe original
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, oyster. 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.

More oyster soup recipes

Mock 19White 16Vegetable 8Chicken 3Cream 3 See all 520 →

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