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Oyster Soup

A savory soup made with chicken feet, onions, mushrooms, oysters, and aromatic spices, thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Oyster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Stew the chickens' feet in water for 2 hours with onion, parsnip, anchovy, mace, cloves, peppercorns, lemon rind, and mushrooms.

  2. Strain the mixture, remove the fat, and add the oysters to the stewpan with the liquid, reserving a little to mix with flour for thickening.

Cook the oysters

  1. Simmer the oysters for 6-7 minutes, being careful not to overcook them.

Finish and serve

  1. In a tureen, combine sherry, lemon juice, essence of anchovy, garlic vinegar, tarragon vinegar, and cayenne.

  2. Before serving, mix in the cream of a crab and the hard part of a dozen pounded oysters for added richness.

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. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Parsnip + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together306 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Onion + parsniptop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,054 recipes

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

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 body of the soup, cooked only briefly.
Chickens' feet
Release gelatin during long stewing, giving the broth body and a silky mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the reserved liquid so the soup becomes smoother and less thin.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich broth and balances its savoury flavours.

The step that matters

Simmering the oysters. Oysters turn firm and rubbery when overcooked, because their proteins tighten under prolonged heat. Simmering for 6-7 minutes, then stopping, keeps them tender.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, onion, parsnip, anchovy, clove, lemon, mushroom):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, parsnip, anchovy, clove, lemon, mushroom. 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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