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Mock Oyster Soup

A tomato-based soup with milk, baking soda, and crackers, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Mock Oyster Soup

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 ↓

Mock Oyster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Peel and stew the tomatoes in the water until soft.

  2. Add the milk, baking soda, salt, and pepper just before serving.

  3. Stir in whole water crackers or small oyster crackers.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,226 recipes

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

  5. Milk + oystertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the acidic, sweet base and most of the body of the soup.
Milk
Adds creamy richness and a mild, smooth texture to the soup.
Baking soda
Neutralizes some tomato acidity, softening the flavor and making the soup less sharp.
Water crackers
Soak up liquid and thicken the soup slightly, adding body and a little texture.

The step that matters

Add the milk and baking soda just before serving. Baking soda reacts with the acid in tomatoes and can cause the milk to curdle if it is heated for long or boiled. Adding the milk at the end and keeping the soup hot rather than boiling helps keep it smooth.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, pepper, butter, oyster. 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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