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Oyster Soup

A soup made with oysters, onions, parsley, thyme, butter, flour, spices, milk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Oyster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Drain the liquor from the oysters into a saucepan.

  2. Heat the liquor and skim it thoroughly.

  3. Add the chopped onions, parsley, thyme, butter mixed with flour, salt, pepper, cloves, and spices.

  4. Add the oysters last and let them boil for two minutes.

  5. Warm the milk and add it just before serving.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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 texture of the soup.
Butter mixed with flour
Forms a roux that thickens the soup and adds richness.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness to the broth.

The step that matters

Add the oysters last and let them boil for two minutes. Oysters toughen and turn rubbery when overcooked, so they should be added at the end and boiled only briefly until their edges curl.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, parsley, thyme, butter, flour, pepper, clove):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, parsley, thyme, butter, flour, pepper, clove. 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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