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Oyster Soup

A creamy soup made with oysters, stock, cream, butter, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Oyster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Scald the oysters in their own liquor, then remove the gills and place them in a tureen.

Make the stock

  1. Take 1 pint of the stock, add the gills and liquor, strain carefully, and simmer for 30 minutes.

  2. Remove from heat, strain again, and add the remaining stock along with seasoning and mace.

  3. Bring to a boil, add the butter and flour mixture, and simmer for 5 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the boiling cream, pour over the oysters, and serve.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Oyster + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,886 recipes

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

  5. Cream + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,009 recipes

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 flavour and body of the soup.
White stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the other flavours.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and combines with flour to thicken.
Flour
Thickens the soup when cooked with the butter.

The step that matters

Adding the boiling cream. Stirring in boiling cream can cause it to curdle or separate, and a gentle hand keeps it smooth. Cream is best added off the boil and stirred in gradually for a silky texture.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Macethe original

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