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Oyster Soup, a LA Plessy

A rich oyster soup made with oysters, fish, white wine, consommé, and aromatics, finished with egg yolks, cream, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 9,057 recipes mention both. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Oyster Soup, a LA Plessy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Blanch the oysters by boiling them for a few minutes, then drain and save the liquor.

  2. Wash the oysters and remove the gills and tendons, placing the fat part in a basin with their liquor.

  3. Prepare quenelles from the fillets of the whitings.

Make the stock

  1. In a small saucepan, combine the bones and trimmings of the whitings, flounders, eel, parsley roots, carrot, celery, thyme, mace, and peppercorns.

  2. Add the white wine and oyster liquor, then bring to a boil for 10 minutes.

  3. Add the washed anchovies and white consommé, then simmer gently for 45 minutes.

  4. Strain the stock through a sieve into a stewpan and thicken with white roux.

  5. Allow the soup to clarify on the stove.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, mix in the egg yolks, cream, cayenne pepper, and lemon juice.

  2. Pour the soup into a tureen and serve.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,810 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 the briny, savoury character of the soup.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup, giving it a smooth, velvety body when gently heated.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow texture that softens the soup.
White roux
Thickens the stock, giving the soup body and a silky mouthfeel.
White consommé
Forms the clear savoury base of the soup.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich flavours of the soup.

The step that matters

Mixing in the egg yolks, cream and lemon juice. Egg yolks thicken when heated, so the soup must stay below a simmer once they are added, or they will curdle and turn grainy. Add them just before serving.

Flavor stand-ins for the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, white wine, whiting, parsley, carrot, celery, thyme):

  1. Marjorambetter flavor fit
  2. Fennelbetter flavor fit
  3. Tarragonbetter flavor fit
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, white wine, whiting, parsley, carrot, celery, thyme. 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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