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Oyster Soup

A soup made with oysters, oyster liquor, water, spices, cream, butter, and cracker.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Oyster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Remove the oysters from their liquor.

  2. Combine half of the liquor with an equal amount of water in a pot.

  3. Boil with crushed allspice, mace, Cayenne pepper, and salt for 20 minutes.

  4. Strain the mixture and return it to the pot.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the oysters and bring to a boil.

  2. Stir in the cream and grated cracker mixed with butter.

  3. Serve as soon as the oysters are plump.

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. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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, cooked briefly so they stay plump.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow body to the broth.
Grated cracker
Starch that thickens the soup as it absorbs liquid.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a rounder mouthfeel.
Crushed allspice
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

Add the oysters and bring to a boil. Oysters toughen and shrink when overcooked. Adding them to the hot broth just until they plump keeps them tender, so they should be served promptly once they firm up.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, allspice, pepper, cream, 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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