Skip to main content
Main

Oyster Soup

A veal-based oyster soup made with carrots, onions, butter, flour, wine, and seasoned with pepper and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Oyster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place the shin of veal in a pot with 3 quarts of water, chopped carrots, chopped onions, pepper, and salt.

  2. Boil for 3 hours, then strain through a sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. In a separate bowl, mix ¾ pound of butter with 3 tablespoons of flour until smooth.

  2. Stir the butter‑flour mixture into the strained broth and bring to a boil.

  3. Add the cleaned oysters and 1½ cups of white wine to the pot.

  4. Bring to a boil again and serve very hot.

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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

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

Veal shin
Gives the broth its body and rich meaty flavour as it simmers for hours.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and with the flour forms a smooth base that thickens the broth.
Flour
Thickens the broth when mixed with butter and stirred in, giving a smoother body.
Oysters
Main ingredient, providing the dish's distinctive briny flavour and tender texture.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Stirring the butter-flour mixture into the broth. Flour clumps if added raw or unevenly, so mixing it smooth with butter first and stirring it into hot broth lets it dissolve and thicken evenly.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, pepper, butter, flour, oyster, white wine. 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

Mock 19White 16Vegetable 8Chicken 3Cream 3 See all 520 →

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters6 recipes