Why it works: Butter and milk 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 oysters
Drain the oysters by pouring cold water over them in a colander placed over a bowl.
Pour the oyster juice into a saucepan that holds about 3 pints.
Mix the butter and flour together in a bowl.
Make the soup
Add the butter-flour mixture, salt, pepper, and mushroom ketchup to the oyster juice in the saucepan.
Bring the mixture to a boil, then remove from heat and add the oysters.
Return the saucepan to the heat and boil for 1 minute.
Serve
Fill a soup tureen with boiling water, then empty it just before serving.
Add milk and cream to the tureen, then pour the hot soup into the tureen.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,525 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,580 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Mushroom + milktop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,231 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Oysters
- Form the main body of the soup and release savory flavor into the broth.
- Flour
- Thickens the broth slightly when cooked with the butter and liquid.
- Butter
- Adds richness and carries flavor, and is cooked with the flour to form a thickener.
- Milk
- Adds creaminess and mellows the salty, briny broth.
- Mushroom ketchup
- Adds deep savory, umami flavor to the broth.
The step that matters
Boil for only 1 minute after adding the oysters. Oysters turn tough and rubbery when overcooked. A brief simmer is enough to heat them through while keeping them tender.
“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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