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Oyster Soup

A creamy oyster soup made with oysters, milk, crackers, butter, nutmeg, mace, celery, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 6,557 recipes mention both. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Oyster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the oysters in 1 pint of water for 1 hour, then remove them from the liquid.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, combine the oyster liquid with the grated crackers and butter.

  2. Add the milk, nutmeg, mace, and celery. Season with pepper.

  3. Cover and heat over low heat until it boils.

  4. Add the oysters and boil again until they are cooked through.

Serve

  1. Serve with toasted bread squares in the 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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together13,015 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main flavor and tender, briny meat that gives the soup its character.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base and adds richness and body to the soup.
Grated crackers
Thicken the broth slightly and add body as they soften in the liquid.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Celery
Adds a fresh, savory vegetable aroma and subtle flavor to the broth.

The step that matters

Cooking the oysters after adding them. Oysters turn firm and rubbery when boiled too long. Adding them last and bringing the soup just to cooked through keeps them tender.

Flavor stand-ins for the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, butter, milk, nutmeg, celery, pepper, bread):

  1. Cinnamonbetter flavor fit
  2. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  3. Marjorambetter flavor fit
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, butter, milk, nutmeg, celery, pepper, bread. 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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