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Oyster Soup

A soup made from oysters, milk, water, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Prepare

  1. Empty the oysters into a colander.

  2. Pour the water over them to drain.

  3. Bring the oyster liquor to a boil.

  4. Skim off any foam.

  5. Warm the oysters by placing them on the back of the stove.

Make the soup

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Add the heated milk to the boiled liquor along with the butter and pepper.

  3. Let the mixture boil once.

  4. Add salt.

Serve

  1. Add a little rolled cracker to the soup just before serving.

  2. Serve immediately.

Variations

  1. Substitute 1 pint of boiling water for the milk.

  2. Use more butter.

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

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

  3. Oyster + milktop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,933 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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 the body of the soup.
Milk
Adds creamy richness and a mild sweetness to the broth.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Add the heated milk to the boiled liquor. Milk can curdle or scorch when it is boiled hard. Warming it gently in a double boiler first keeps it smooth, so the single brief boil only joins the flavours.

“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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