Skip to main content
Main

Oyster Soup

A savory soup made with oysters, whiting, stock, herbs, and a roux enriched with egg yolks and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Whiting and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 236 recipes mention both. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Oyster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters and fish

  1. Put the oysters into a small saucepan with their liquid and bring the mixture to a boil.

  2. Remove the gills and gristle from the oysters, cut the oysters into quarters, and set them aside.

  3. Cut the whiting.

Make the stock

  1. Add the whiting to the stock.

  2. Add the oyster gills, anchovy, carrot, celery, thyme, mace, and peppercorns to the stock.

  3. Simmer gently for one hour.

  4. Strain the mixture.

Thicken and finish

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan and stir in the flour until smooth.

  2. Add the strained fish stock and stir until it boils.

  3. Cook for three minutes.

  4. Beat the egg yolks and mix them with the cream.

  5. Add the mixture to the soup.

  6. Season with lemon juice, cayenne, and coarse sea salt to taste.

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. Whiting + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together236 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Whiting
Gives the stock a fish base and body as it simmers.
Oysters
Provide the main flavour and tender pieces of shellfish in the soup.
Butter
Enriches the roux and adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the stock with the butter as a roux.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup when stirred in with cream.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk and cream mixture. Egg yolks thicken when heated but can scramble if the soup is boiling. Add the mixture off the heat or over very low heat, stirring constantly, so the soup becomes creamy rather than curdled.

Flavor stand-ins for the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (whiting, sauce, oyster, anchovy, carrot, celery, parsley):

  1. Capersbetter flavor fit
  2. Thymethe original
  3. Tarragonabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Marjoramabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against whiting, sauce, oyster, anchovy, carrot, celery, parsley. 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.

More oyster soup recipes

Mock 19White 16Vegetable 8Chicken 3Cream 3 See all 520 →

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCelery StewCelery Stew25 recipes