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To Make Oyster Soup

A soup made from codfish bones, onions, celery, salt, pepper, butter, bread, egg yolks, and oysters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

To Make Oyster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Boil codfish bones in 2 quarts of water with onions, celery, pepper, and salt for 4 to 5 hours.

  2. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

Finish the soup

  1. Cool a little of the soup and beat in the egg yolks.

  2. Return the egg mixture to the soup and let it sit in the tureen until serving.

  3. Prepare 4 dozen oysters by removing their gills and stewing them, then add 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 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together27,232 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together8,184 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Codfish bones
Give the broth its base flavor and body as they simmer for hours.
Egg yolks
Thicken the soup gently and add richness and a smooth texture.
Oysters
Provide the main seafood flavor and tender texture in the finished soup.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and aroma to the broth.
Celery
Adds aromatic, herbal flavor to the broth.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently. If the soup is too hot when they go in, the yolks can scramble and curdle, so the mixture must be cooled slightly first and returned without boiling.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, pepper, butter, bread, egg, oyster):

  1. Asparagusbetter flavor fit
  2. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  3. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, pepper, butter, bread, egg, oyster. 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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