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
Boil 1 quart of water in a pot.
Add 1 quart of milk and stir in 1 teacup of rolled cracker crumbs.
Season with pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.
When it comes to a boil, add 1 quart of oysters and stir to prevent scorching.
Add a piece of butter the size of an egg and let it boil once.
Remove from heat immediately.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,184 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Egg + oystertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,103 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 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 the soup's seafood character.
- Milk
- Adds richness and body to the broth.
- Rolled cracker crumbs
- Thicken the liquid slightly and give it body.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
The step that matters
Remove from heat immediately after the final boil. Oysters become tough and shrink when overcooked. Once the soup has boiled briefly with the oysters, further heating toughens their texture and can curdle the milk, so it should come off the heat right away.
“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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