Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Oyster Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the broth
Wash the oysters in cold water and drain the water into a soup kettle.
Heat the kettle on the fire and bring the liquid to a boil, skimming off any foam.
Add the rich new milk and heat until just before boiling.
Finish the soup
Stir in the oysters and thicken the soup with corn starch mixed with a little milk.
Add the butter and season with pepper and coarse sea salt.
Let the soup boil once and serve immediately, being careful not to burn it.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + corntop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,324 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,184 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,345 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, 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 bite of the soup.
- Corn starch
- Thickens the soup as it heats, giving it a smooth body.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the soup.
- Rich new milk
- Forms the creamy base and adds sweetness and body.
The step that matters
Thickening with corn starch. Corn starch must be mixed smoothly with a little cold milk first, then stirred in while hot. Added dry or lumpy, it clumps and leaves a grainy texture. Starch thickens only when it reaches a boil, so the soup needs to be heated enough for it to set.
“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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