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Soup

Oyster Soup with Celery

A soup made with oysters, celery, butter, flour, milk, and seasonings.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shuck the oysters and reserve the liquor.

  2. Chop the celery and simmer it in water until tender.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, melt butter and stir in flour to make a roux.

  2. Gradually add milk and oyster liquor, stirring until thickened.

  3. Add the oysters and cooked celery, season with salt and pepper, and heat through.

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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.
Celery
Adds a crisp vegetable body and fresh, savoury aroma.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour in the roux.
Flour
Thickens the soup by forming a roux with the butter.
Milk
Forms the creamy base that the roux thickens.

The step that matters

Gradually add milk and oyster liquor to the roux. Adding liquid slowly while stirring keeps the roux smooth. Starch granules swell evenly and thicken the soup without lumps.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Celerythe original

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