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Oyster Bisque

A creamy soup made from oysters, milk, butter, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Oyster Bisque

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Drain the liquid from the oysters and add enough water to make 1 pint of liquid.

  2. Chop the oysters finely and combine with the liquid in a pot; simmer for 10 minutes.

Make the bisque

  1. In a separate pan, cook the flour and butter together.

  2. Add the boiling milk to the flour mixture and stir until smooth.

  3. Combine the milk mixture with the oysters and liquid.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  5. Slowly stir in the beaten egg, mixing thoroughly.

  6. Just before serving, add the juice of the lemon.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 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 bisque.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth base.
Butter
Cooks with the flour to form a roux that carries richness.
Milk
Forms the creamy body of the bisque.
Egg
Enriches and thickens the soup when stirred in.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, creamy flavour.

The step that matters

Slowly stir in the beaten egg. Adding egg to hot liquid can scramble it into curds. Stirring in slowly while mixing thoroughly lets it blend in smoothly and thicken the soup gently.

“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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