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Oyster Soup

A soup made with white stock, oysters, rice flour, milk, lemon juice, and oyster liquor.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Oyster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Combine the white stock and oyster liquor in a pot and bring to a boil.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the rice flour and milk into a smooth batter.

  3. Once the stock is boiling, pour in the batter while stirring continuously.

  4. Let it boil for a few minutes, then remove from heat.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the oysters and cover, allowing to sit for 5 minutes without boiling.

  2. Strain in the lemon juice and serve in a hot tureen.

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. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Rice + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

White stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup.
Oysters
Provide the main flavour and texture of the soup.
Rice flour
Thickens the stock as it boils, giving the soup body.
Milk
Adds richness and softness to the batter and the finished soup.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich oyster flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the batter to the boiling stock. Pour the batter in while stirring constantly so the flour disperses evenly; otherwise it can clump into lumps instead of thickening the soup smoothly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, rice, flour, milk. 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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