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Oyster Bisque

A creamy soup made from oysters, celery, milk, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Oyster Bisque

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery and oysters

  1. Boil the chopped celery in ½ pint of water for 30 minutes.

  2. Cook the chopped oysters in their own liquor for 10 minutes.

Make the bisque

  1. In a double boiler, rub together the flour and butter.

  2. Gradually add the milk to the flour and butter mixture.

  3. Combine the celery and oysters with the milk mixture.

  4. Season with salt and pepper, and cook for 20 minutes.

Serve

  1. Strain the bisque and serve in bouillon cups with a spoonful of whipped cream on top.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 briny, savoury flavour of the bisque.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid body and adds richness to the soup.
Flour
Thickens the milk as its starch swells when heated, giving body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps form the flour roux.
Celery
Contributes a fresh, aromatic vegetable flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

Adding the milk gradually to the flour and butter. Flour starch clumps if it meets liquid unevenly. Adding the milk slowly while mixing lets each starch granule hydrate separately, giving a smooth, evenly thickened bisque.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, oyster, butter, flour, pepper, cream. 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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