Skip to main content
Main

Oyster Soup

A creamy oyster soup made with fresh and cooked oysters, onions, ham, flour, cream, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and thyme are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Oyster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. In a large pot, combine the washed oysters, water, chopped onions, ham, pepper, and salt.

  2. Boil until the liquid is reduced by half, then strain through a sieve.

  3. Return the liquid to the pot and add the fresh oysters.

  4. Boil until the fresh oysters are cooked through.

Thicken and serve

  1. Thicken the soup by whisking in the flour, cream, and beaten egg yolks.

  2. Boil for a few minutes, ensuring it does not curdle and the flour is lump-free.

  3. If desired, add a little thyme, but do not boil long enough to discolor the soup.

  4. Serve with the last oysters added to 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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  2. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Oyster + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together360 recipes

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

  5. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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 body of the soup, with fresh oysters added for texture.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it heats, giving it a smooth, lump-free body.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel to the soup.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup, though they can curdle if overheated.
Onions
Build a savory aromatic base as they simmer in the broth.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks and cream. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat; if the soup boils hard after they are added, the proteins can scramble and curdle. Keep it just below a boil and stir steadily.

Swap the thyme

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Thymethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, onion, ham, pepper, flour, cream, egg. 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 →

You might also like

Corn FrittersCorn Fritters6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes