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Oyster Soup

A creamy soup made with oysters, veal stock, milk, butter, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 oysters

  1. Blanch the oysters without boiling them.

  2. Strain and save the liquor.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan.

  2. Add the flour and stir for a few minutes.

  3. Add the oyster liquor, veal stock, and milk to the stewpan.

  4. Season with salt, peppercorns, cayenne, mace, Harvey sauce, and essence of anchovies.

  5. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

  6. Let it boil for 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Place the oysters in a tureen.

  2. Add the cream.

  3. Pour the boiling soup over the oysters.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Oyster + saucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 texture of the soup.
Butter
Carries the flour and adds richness to the base.
Flour
Thickens the stock and milk into a smooth, body-rich soup.
Veal stock
Forms the savoury liquid base of the soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the flavour of the soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel at the end.

The step that matters

Blanch the oysters without boiling them. Boiling toughens oyster flesh and makes it shrink and turn rubbery. Brief heat just firms the edges while keeping the oysters tender.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

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

More oyster soup recipes

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