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Oyster Soup

A soup made from veal, plaice, oysters, milk, cream, butter, flour, and seasonings.

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 81,283 recipes mention both. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Oyster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the veal and fish stock

  1. In a pot, add 1 quart of cold water, veal cut into small pieces, onion, and bay leaf.

  2. Simmer gently for 3 hours.

  3. Strain and let cool to remove the fat.

  4. Fillet the plaice and remove the black skin.

  5. Simmer in 1 quart of cold water for about 1 hour until reduced to shreds.

  6. Rub through a fine sieve.

  7. Simmer the oyster beards in ½ pint of fish stock.

  8. Add the oyster liquor.

  9. Strain and set aside.

Make the soup

  1. Mix the veal and fish stock.

  2. Bring to a boil.

  3. Melt the butter in a stewpan.

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

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

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

Add the oysters and serve

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

  2. Add them to the boiling soup just before serving, ensuring they do not cook.

  3. 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Butter + milktop 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + oystertop 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

Veal knuckle
Gives the stock body and rich savoury flavour after long simmering.
Plaice
Adds fish flavour and, reduced to shreds, contributes body to the stock.
Butter
Enriches the base and carries flavour when melted with the flour.
Flour
Thickens the soup into a smooth, lightly bound texture when cooked in the butter.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Oysters
Provide the main shellfish flavour and a tender texture when kept from overcooking.

The step that matters

Add the oysters just before serving. Oysters toughen and shrink when overheated, so they should be added to the hot soup at the last moment and kept just below a simmer.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

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

  1. Potatobetter flavor fit
  2. Shallotabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Asparagusabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, flour, milk, cream, 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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