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Oyster Soup

A savory soup made with veal, plaice, oysters, milk, cream, and anchovy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 81,283 recipes mention both. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Oyster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the veal stock

  1. Cut the veal.

  2. Place it in a pot with the onion, bay leaf, and a little coarse sea salt.

  3. Add 1 quart of cold water and simmer for 4 hours.

  4. Strain the stock.

  5. Let it cool.

  6. Remove the fat.

Make the plaice stock

  1. In another pot, add the plaice to 1 quart of cold water and simmer until the flesh falls apart.

  2. Strain and press the plaice through a sieve.

Make the soup

  1. Combine the veal and plaice stocks, add the oyster liquor, milk, and anchovy sauce.

  2. Bring to a boil.

  3. Mix the cornflour with butter to create a thickening paste.

  4. Add it to the boiling soup along with pepper, salt, and cayenne.

  5. Simmer for 2-3 minutes.

  6. Cut the oysters in half.

  7. Add them to the boiling soup.

  8. Remove from heat.

  9. Stir in the cream before serving.

  10. Simmer the oyster beards in a little water, strain, and add the liquor to the soup.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Oyster + anchovytop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together8,184 recipes

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

  5. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal knuckle
Gives the stock its body and rich, savoury flavour during long simmering.
Plaice
Its flesh breaks down into the stock, adding fish flavour and body to the soup.
Cornflour
Thickens the soup as it heats, giving it a smooth, velvety texture.
Butter
Coats the cornflour so it blends smoothly into the hot soup without lumps.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the savoury notes of the fish stock.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Oysters
Contribute their briny, distinctive sea flavour to the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the cornflour and butter paste. Cornflour must be fully mixed with the butter and added to the boiling soup, then simmered briefly, so its starch swells and thickens evenly. Added lumpy or too early, it can clump or leave a raw starchy taste.

Flavor stand-ins for the clove

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

  1. Capersbetter flavor fit
  2. Garlicbetter flavor fit
  3. Celerybetter flavor fit
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, milk, cream, butter, oyster, anchovy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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