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Oyster Stuffing

A savory soup made with oysters, veal, fish stock, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Oyster Stuffing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stocks

  1. Fillet the plaice and remove the black skin.

  2. Simmer the filleted plaice in 1 quart of cold water for about 1 hour until reduced to shreds.

  3. Rub the shreds through a fine sieve.

  4. Simmer the beards of the oysters in ½ pint of fish stock.

  5. Add the oyster liquor to the oyster stock.

  6. Strain the oyster mixture and set aside.

  7. Mix the veal with the fish stock and bring to a boil.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook for 2-3 minutes.

  3. Pour in the hot stock and stir until it boils.

  4. Add the milk, oyster liquor, anchovy essence, and season to taste.

  5. If the oysters are large, cut them in halves.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the halved oysters to the boiling soup just before serving, ensuring they do not cook.

  2. Stir in the cream just before serving.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Oyster + anchovytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Oyster + fishtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together496 recipes

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

  4. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Give the soup its characteristic briny, savoury flavour.
Butter
Provides fat and a rich flavour base for the flour roux.
Flour
Thickens the soup when cooked with butter before the stock is added.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the flavour of the broth.
Fish stock
Forms the savoury liquid base that carries the other flavours.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture at the end.

The step that matters

Add the halved oysters just before serving. Oysters toughen and shrink when overcooked, so they should be added to the hot soup at the last moment, just long enough to warm through.

“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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