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Oyster Soup

A creamy soup made with oysters, butter, celery, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper 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

Make the soup base

  1. Strain half the liquor from the oysters and place the oysters and liquor in a pot.

  2. Add ½ cup of butter, chopped celery, celery seed, salt, and red pepper to the pot.

  3. Heat until the oysters just begin to curl.

  4. Remove from heat.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the cream and milk.

  2. Bring to a boil.

  3. Cream 1 tablespoon of butter with 1 tablespoon of flour.

  4. Add the mixture to the soup.

  5. Bring to a boil again.

  6. Remove from heat immediately.

  7. Place 1-inch squares of bread in a tureen.

  8. Pour the soup into the tureen.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Milk + breadtop 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
Provide the main flavor and tender texture of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor through the soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety body to the soup.
Milk
Thins the soup and adds mild sweetness and body.
Flour
Thickens the soup slightly when creamed with butter and stirred in.

The step that matters

Remove from heat immediately. Oysters turn tough and rubbery when overcooked, so the soup should be taken off the heat as soon as it boils and the oysters are just curled.

Swap the celery

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

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

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