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White Oyster Soup

A creamy soup made with oysters, veal stock, cream, and thickened with arrow‑root or butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

White Oyster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Open the oysters carefully.

  2. Strain the liquor from the oysters.

  3. Rinse the oysters in their liquor.

  4. Remove the gills from the oysters.

  5. Strain the liquor through a fine sieve.

  6. Pour the strained liquor over the oysters.

  7. Plump the oysters in their own liquor without boiling.

Make the soup

  1. Simmer the oyster gills in 2 quarts of veal stock for 20 to 30 minutes.

  2. Heat the stock.

  3. Season the stock with mace and cayenne.

  4. Strain the stock from the oyster gills.

  5. Pour the strained stock into the soup.

  6. Add the liquor to the soup.

  7. Stir in 1 pint of boiling cream.

  8. If thickening is needed, mix 1½ ounces of arrow‑root with a little milk or cream.

  9. Alternatively, mix 4 ounces of butter with 3 ounces of flour.

  10. Add the thickening mixture to the soup.

Serve

  1. Serve the oysters in a tureen.

  2. Pour the soup over the oysters.

  3. Serve immediately.

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

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

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

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

  4. Veal + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,761 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

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 texture of the soup, and their liquor adds savoury depth.
Veal stock
Forms the savoury base that carries the flavour of the whole soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky body to the soup.
Arrow-root
Thickens the soup to a smooth, glossy consistency.

The step that matters

Plump the oysters without boiling. Boiling toughens oyster flesh and makes it shrink and rubbery, so they should be heated gently in their liquor only until plump.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Celeryfits about as well
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, veal, 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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