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 liquor
Strain the liquor from the oysters and bring it to a boil.
Skim the surface carefully.
Make the sauce
In a separate saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the flour until combined.
Add the milk to the butter and flour mixture, stirring until it boils.
Combine the milk mixture with the oyster liquor and boil together for 2 minutes.
Finish the soup
Add the oysters, pepper, and salt, and boil for another minute.
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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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 flavour and tender texture of the soup.
- Butter
- Carries flavour and enriches the soup with fat and a silky mouthfeel.
- Flour
- Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth base that gives the soup body.
- Milk
- Forms the creamy liquid that the flour thickens into the soup's base.
The step that matters
Add the oysters and boil only briefly. Oysters toughen and shrink when boiled too long, so they should cook just until their edges curl and they are heated through.
“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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