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Oyster Soup

A soup of oysters, milk, butter, eggs, crackers, celery, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Oyster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the milk and set aside.

Make the soup

  1. Place the oysters in a pot with butter, salt, and pepper; simmer until they show their beards.

  2. Add the boiled milk to the oysters and bring to a boil.

Serve

  1. In a tureen, combine the chopped eggs, crushed crackers, and chopped celery.

  2. Pour the boiling soup over the mixture in the tureen and serve.

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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

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

  4. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

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

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main flavor and the delicate seafood character of the soup.
Milk
Forms the liquid base and gives the soup a creamy, mellow body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and smooths the broth.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add body and substance to the soup as a chopped filling.
Crackers
Absorb liquid and thicken the soup slightly as they are crushed into the mixture.
Celery
Adds a fresh, aromatic vegetable note and light crunch.

The step that matters

Simmer the oysters until they show their beards. Oysters turn tough and rubbery when overcooked. Gentle simmering only until the edges curl firms them just enough while keeping them tender.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

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