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Oyster Sottp

A soup made with oysters, oyster liquor, water, spices, cream, butter, and grated cracker.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Oyster Sottp

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Remove the oysters from their liquor.

  2. Combine half of the liquor with an equal amount of water in a pot.

  3. Boil with crushed allspice, mace, Cayenne pepper, and salt for 20 minutes.

  4. Strain the mixture and return it to the pot.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the oysters and bring to a boil.

  2. Stir in the cream and grated cracker mixed with butter.

  3. Serve as soon as the oysters are plump.

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. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Oysters
Provide the main flavor and tender texture, and plumpen when heated briefly.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety body to the soup.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor through the soup.
Cracker
Grated into the soup, it thickens the broth slightly and adds body.

The step that matters

Serve as soon as the oysters are plump. Oysters are delicate. Once they swell and their edges curl, further boiling toughens them and makes them rubbery, so they should be removed from heat right away.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, allspice, pepper, cream, butter. 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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