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Soup

Another Oyster Soup

A creamy oyster soup made with butter, flour, stock, nutmeg, cayenne, anchovy sauce, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,048 recipes mention both. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Another Oyster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Dissolve the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Gradually stir in the white stock.

  3. Add the nutmeg, anchovy sauce, cayenne, and cream.

  4. Boil gently for 15 minutes, stirring constantly.

Serve

  1. Cut the oysters in half and pour the hot soup over them in a tureen.

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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,048 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + creamtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together41,494 recipes

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

  3. Oyster + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Oyster + buttertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,175 recipes

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

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together18,411 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main flavour and texture of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the base, carrying flavour.
Flour
Thickens the butter and stock into a smooth, lightly bodied soup.
White stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, silkier mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Boil gently for 15 minutes, stirring constantly. Cream can curdle or scorch if it boils hard or sits on the base of the pan. Gentle heat and constant stirring keep the soup smooth and thickened by the flour.

Flavor stand-ins for the nutmeg

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

  1. Capersbetter flavor fit
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Parsleyabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Celeryabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, butter, flour, anchovy, sauce, cream. 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 →

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