Why it works: Oyster and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,184 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓
Plain Oyster Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the broth
Strain the liquor of two quarts of large oysters into a soup pan.
Season the liquor with a tea-spoonful of whole pepper, a tea-spoonful of whole allspice, the same quantity of whole cloves, and seven or eight blades of mace.
If the oysters are fresh, add a large tea-spoonful of salt; if they are salt oysters, none is requisite.
Set the pan on hot coals and boil slowly, skimming when necessary, until the liquor is sufficiently flavoured with the spice.
Take the liquor from the fire and strain out the spice.
Finish the soup
Cut out the hard part of the oysters and chop them fine.
Season the chopped oysters with a powdered nutmeg.
Return the liquor to the soup pan and add the chopped oysters with whatever liquid remains about them.
Add a quarter of a pound of butter, divided into little bits and rolled in flour.
Cover the pan and let it boil hard about five minutes.
Do not cook the oysters too much, as they become tough and tasteless.
Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)
Counts 3 of 4 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.
What these numbers assume: 3 portions
| Ingredient | Portion assumed | kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Butter | 1 tbsp (14g) | 102 |
| Oyster | 6 medium (84g) | 81 |
| Salt | 1 tsp (6g) | 0 |
| 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.
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Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,184 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
-
Butter + macetop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together11,405 recipes
Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
-
Oyster + macetop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,910 recipes
Butter and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,405 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 body and briny flavour of the soup.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the broth.
- Mace
- Contributes a warm, aromatic flavour to the flavoured liquor.
The step that matters
Cook the oysters briefly. Oysters contain proteins that tighten and toughen with prolonged heat, becoming rubbery and losing their delicate flavour. Adding them near the end and boiling only about five minutes keeps them tender.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, butter):
- Capersfits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against 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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