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Oyster Soup Without Milk

A simple oyster soup made with oysters, water, cracker, pepper, salt, and butter, without milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Oyster and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and 8,184 recipes mention both. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Oyster Soup Without Milk

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Drain the juice from the oysters and place it in a pot on the stove.

  2. Add ½ pint of water, finely rolled cracker, pepper, salt, and butter to the pot.

  3. Heat the mixture until it scalds.

  4. Drop in the oysters and cook until their lips curl and they are done.

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. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together8,184 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Oyster + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together7,663 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 tender texture of the soup.
Cracker
Thickens the broth slightly as it softens and absorbs liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the broth.

The step that matters

Drop in the oysters and cook until their lips curl. Oysters turn firm and rubbery when overcooked, so they should be added at the end and cooked only until the edges curl and they are done.

“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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