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Plain Oyster Soup

A simple oyster soup made with oysters, onion, celery, mace, butter, flour, cream, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 16,012 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Plain Oyster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Strain the oysters and reserve the liquor if fresh. If the liquor is not fresh, use water.

  2. Combine the liquor or water, onion, mace, celery, pepper, and salt in a pot.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the oysters.

  2. When the oysters are just boiling, add enough cream and milk to fill the tureen.

  3. Mix the butter and flour together until smooth and stir the butter-flour mixture into the soup.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 124,287 recipes mention both: they likely 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 flavour and tender texture of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the broth.
Flour
Thickens the soup slightly when stirred in with the butter.
Cream and milk
Add body, sweetness and a mellow, rounded creaminess.

The step that matters

Adding the butter-flour mixture. Flour thickens only when its starch is evenly dispersed and heated; stirring it in smooth, rather than dropping in lumps, prevents a grainy or clumped texture.

Flavor stand-ins for the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, onion, mace, pepper, butter, flour, cream):

  1. Nutmegbetter flavor fit
  2. Parsleyabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Thymeabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, onion, mace, pepper, butter, flour, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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