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Oyster Soup

A soup made with boiling water, milk, cracker crumbs, oysters, potatoes, butter, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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

Make the base

  1. Pour boiling water into a skillet.

  2. Add whole milk and stir in rolled cracker crumbs.

  3. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

Cook and serve

  1. Bring to a boil, then add fresh oysters and stir to prevent scorching.

  2. Add sliced raw potatoes and let it boil.

  3. Add the piece of sweet butter and let it boil once more.

  4. Remove from heat immediately, dish up, 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

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

  5. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main briny, savory flavor and tender texture of the soup.
Potatoes
Add body and starch that thicken the broth slightly and give substance.
Whole milk
Supplies the creamy base and mild sweetness that rounds out the broth.
Rolled cracker crumbs
Absorb liquid and help thicken the soup for a more substantial texture.
Sweet butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the soup a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Remove from heat immediately after the final boil. Oysters toughen and shrink when overcooked, and milk-based soups can scorch or curdle if kept boiling. Stirring while the oysters go in helps prevent scorching on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Shallotfits less well

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