Skip to main content
Main

Oyster Souffle

A baked oyster and fish mixture thickened with flour and butter, folded with eggs and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and cream 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 ↓

Oyster Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Blanch and remove gills from the oysters, then cut each into four pieces.

Make the base

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and mix in the flour over medium heat.

  2. Add the oyster liquor and stir until thickened and the flour is cooked.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a mortar, add the fish, and pound together.

  4. Incorporate the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a prepared dish and bake until set.

  2. Serve hot.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Fish + oystertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together496 recipes

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

  3. Whiting + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together135 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the soufflé structure and give it lift and a light, airy body.
Flour
Thickens the butter and liquid into a stable base that holds the mixture together.
Fish
Provides the main body and savory flavor of the mixture.
Oysters
Add the distinctive briny flavor and tender texture to the soufflé.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the texture of the mixture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps form the roux base with the flour.

The step that matters

Incorporate the eggs one at a time. Adding eggs gradually lets each one emulsify fully into the base, keeping the mixture smooth. Dumping them in at once can cause curdling and uneven setting, reducing the soufflé's rise.

“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.

You might also like

Fried FishFried Fish120 recipesFish CroquettesFish Croquettes81 recipesScalloped CodScalloped Cod69 recipesBroiled FishBroiled Fish68 recipes