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Plain Oyster Soup

A simple soup made from oysters, water, pepper, butter, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Oyster and butter match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 8,175 recipes mention both. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Plain Oyster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rinse the oysters in a colander with 1 pint of cold water.

  2. In a porcelain kettle, combine the rinsed oysters and 1 pint of boiling water.

  3. Bring to a boil and skim thoroughly.

Season and serve

  1. Season with pepper and butter.

  2. Add the oysters.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt.

  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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Oyster + buttertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,175 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together85,512 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Oyster + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together7,651 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Form the main body of the soup and release their briny flavor into the broth.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the broth.

The step that matters

Skim thoroughly after the boil. Oysters and their cooking liquid throw off foam and scum as they heat. Removing it keeps the broth clear and gives it a clean flavor.

“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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