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Oyster Soup

A creamy soup made with oysters, water, butter, onion, celery, salt, pepper, and cream.

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

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Shuck the oysters and reserve the liquor.

  2. In a pot, melt butter and sauté chopped onion and celery until soft.

  3. Add water and oyster liquor, then bring to a boil.

  4. Add the oysters and cook until they curl.

  5. Season with salt and pepper, then stir in cream before serving.

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. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

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

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 texture, cooking briefly so they curl and stay soft.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor as it softens the onion and celery.
Onion
Builds a savory base of aroma and sweetness as it softens in butter.
Celery
Adds a fresh, vegetal aroma to the savory base as it softens.
Cream
Adds body and a silky, rich mouthfeel to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Cook the oysters until they just curl. Oysters turn firm and rubbery when overcooked, so they should be added near the end and removed from heat as soon as their edges curl.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, butter, celery, pepper, cream. 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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