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Oyster Soup

A soup made with oysters, whiting, stock, carrot, mace, herbs, peppercorns, butter, flour, egg yolk, cream, lemon juice, and anchovy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 14,555 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Oyster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Simmer the oysters, whiting, white stock, carrot, mace, dried herbs, and peppercorns for 20 minutes, then strain.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a pot, add the flour, and then gradually stir in the strained stock until it boils.

  2. Remove from heat and gently stir in the yolk and cream without boiling.

  3. Blanch the oysters, remove the gills, and add them to the soup along with their liquor, lemon juice, and seasoning.

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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Oyster + fishtop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together496 recipes

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

  3. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together4,488 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together8,184 recipes

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

Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 124,287 recipes mention both: they likely 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

Oysters
Provide the main briny, savoury flavour of the soup.
Butter
Carries flavour and enriches the base when cooked with flour.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth base by gelatinising with the butter.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the soup gently, adding richness and body.
Cream
Adds richness, smoothness and body to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Adding the yolk and cream. Egg yolk thickens by gentle heat, and if the soup boils it can curdle or turn grainy. Removing the pot from the heat before stirring in the yolk and cream keeps the soup smooth and silky.

Flavor stand-ins for the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, whiting, fish, carrot, butter, flour, pepper):

  1. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  2. Capersbetter flavor fit
  3. Celerybetter flavor fit
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, whiting, fish, carrot, butter, flour, pepper. 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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