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Oyster Soup

A savory soup made with oysters, stock, milk, egg yolks, butter, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Oyster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Remove the gills from the oysters.

  2. Place the oysters with their liquor and the stock in a saucepan, then boil gently for 30 minutes.

  3. If the stock is not flavored, add onion, turnip, carrot, and celery to cook with it, then strain.

Make the soup base

  1. Melt the butter in a pan without browning it, then add the flour and mix until smooth.

  2. Pour in the stock and stir constantly over heat until boiling.

  3. Season with white pepper, salt, anchovy sauce, and cayenne pepper.

Finish and serve

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with the milk, then strain this mixture into the soup, which should be slightly cooled.

  2. Reheat the soup without boiling.

  3. Add the oysters, cut in half, and cook for a few minutes 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Oyster + anchovytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Oyster + fishtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together496 recipes

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

  4. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

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 bite of the soup.
Egg yolks
Thicken the soup and give it a smooth, rich body when heated gently.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mildness, softening the briny seafood flavor.
Butter
Carries flavor and enriches the base when melted with the flour.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth base when cooked with the butter.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk mixture. If the soup is too hot when the egg yolks and milk go in, the yolks can scramble and curdle. Cooling the soup slightly and reheating without boiling keeps the custard-like thickening smooth.

“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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