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Oyster Soup

A soup made with oysters, sweet milk, white sauce, onion, celery, served hot with butter crackers.

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. Make the white sauce.

  2. Add the sweet milk.

  3. Stir in a little grated onion and celery, just enough to add flavor.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the oysters.

  2. Heat on the stove until they curl, which takes only a few minutes.

  3. Serve hot with toasted small butter crackers.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 flavor and tender texture when heated until they curl.
Sweet milk
Forms the liquid base that gives the soup its body and creaminess.
White sauce
Thickens the soup and adds a smooth, rich body.
Grated onion
Adds a mild aromatic savory flavor to the broth.
Grated celery
Adds a subtle fresh vegetal aroma and flavor.

The step that matters

Heat until the oysters just curl. Oysters turn tough and rubbery when overcooked, so they should be heated only until the edges curl, which takes just a few minutes.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, milk, sauce, onion, butter. 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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