Skip to main content
Main

Oyster Soup

A soup made with oysters, stock, cream, butter, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Oyster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scald the oysters in their own liquor.

  2. Remove the gills from the oysters.

  3. Place the oysters in a tureen.

  4. Take 1 pint of the stock.

Make the soup

  1. Add the gills and strained liquor to the stock.

  2. Simmer for 30 minutes, then remove from heat.

  3. Strain the mixture again.

  4. Add the remaining stock along with seasoning and mace.

  5. Bring the soup to a boil.

  6. Add the butter and flour mixture.

  7. Simmer for 5 minutes.

  8. Stir in the boiling cream.

Serve

  1. Pour the soup over the oysters and 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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  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. Oyster + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,886 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Cream + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,009 recipes

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 flavor and body of the soup.
White stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the seasoning and oyster flavor.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavor and gives a rich mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the soup as its starch gelatinizes with heat.

The step that matters

Simmer after adding the butter and flour mixture. Flour thickens only when heated, and it must cook long enough to lose its raw, pasty taste and avoid lumps. A short simmer lets the starch swell evenly and smooths the soup's body.

Swap the mace

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

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

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

Corn FrittersCorn Fritters6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes