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Oyster Bisque

A creamy oyster soup made with oysters, milk, cream, butter, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Oyster Bisque

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Chop the oysters.

  2. In a pot, combine the oyster liquor, water, parsley, onion, bay leaf, celery, and salt; simmer for 30 minutes.

  3. Mash the oysters through a colander and set aside.

Make the bisque

  1. In a separate pan, melt the butter and stir in the flour until smooth.

  2. Add the heated milk and cream to the butter and flour mixture, stirring well.

  3. Combine the oyster mixture with the milk mixture and let simmer for 10 minutes.

  4. Add the egg yolks and cook for 1 minute without boiling.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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 texture of the bisque once mashed into the base.
Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the milk and cream into a smooth body.
Milk and cream
Supply richness and a silky, body-building liquid for the bisque.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the bisque when gently cooked without boiling.

The step that matters

Add the egg yolks without boiling. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat. If the bisque boils after they go in, the yolks can scramble, leaving a grainy texture instead of a smooth, creamy one.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, milk, cream, oyster, pepper, egg, butter):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, milk, cream, oyster, pepper, egg, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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