Why it works: Milk and butter match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 81,222 recipes mention both. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Oysters, Soup of
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the oysters
Scald the oysters in their own liquor, remove gills, and cut them in half.
Place the oysters in a soup tureen.
Make the soup
In a stewpan, boil the gills with the white stock or milk and oyster liquor for 15 minutes.
Strain the liquid and let it sit for a few minutes, then pour it away from the sediment.
Melt the butter in a stewpan, mix in the flour, then add the strained stock and cream.
Season with cayenne, nutmeg, and anchovy, and stir over low heat for 15 minutes.
Serve
Pour the soup over the oysters in the tureen and serve 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Milk + buttertop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together81,222 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together41,494 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Oyster + anchovytop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together601 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Oyster + buttertop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together8,175 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Flour + nutmegtop 6% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together18,411 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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 flavour and tender texture of the soup.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, and with flour forms the base that thickens the soup.
- Flour
- Thickens the stock with the butter, giving the soup body.
- Cream
- Adds richness and smooth body to the finished soup.
- White stock or milk
- Forms the liquid base of the soup.
The step that matters
Thickening the stock with butter and flour. Flour must be cooked into the melted butter before the liquid is added, so it dissolves smoothly and thickens evenly instead of clumping. Stirring over low heat keeps the soup from scorching or curdling the cream.
“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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