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Oyster Soup

A creamy oyster soup made with oysters, stock, bread crumbs, butter, milk, cream, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Oyster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and remove all shell particles from the oysters.

  2. Reserve the liquor and set aside the soft portions.

Make the broth

  1. In a pot, cook the chicken stock, bread crumbs, reserved liquor, tough parts of the oysters, onion, celery, parsley, mace, and bay leaf for twenty minutes.

  2. Pass the mixture through a sieve, then bring it to a boil.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the butter and flour cooked together.

  2. Stir in the milk, soft parts of the oysters, cream mixed with the egg yolk, and seasonings.

  3. Serve immediately when very hot.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
The tough parts flavour the broth, while the soft parts stay tender and delicate in the finished soup.
Milk
Forms the main body of the soup and gives it a smooth, mild richness.
Butter and flour
Cooked together as a roux, they thicken the soup and add a rich, nutty base.
Egg yolk
Enriches the soup and thickens it gently when heated with the cream.
Cream
Adds fat for a silky mouthfeel and a rounder, softer flavour.
Bread crumbs
Add body to the broth and help give the soup a thicker texture.

The step that matters

Adding the cream and egg yolk. Egg yolk thickens by gentle heat. If the soup boils after the yolk goes in, the proteins can scramble and curdle, leaving a grainy texture. Keep it hot but below a boil.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, butter, bread, flour, onion, milk, cream):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, butter, bread, flour, onion, milk, cream. 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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