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Oyster Soup

A creamy oyster soup made with oysters, water, butter, flour, cream, cayenne pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 41,516 recipes mention both. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Oyster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine oysters and water in a pot and heat until it simmers, not boiling.

  2. Strain the mixture through a colander into a hot dish, leaving the oysters in the colander.

  3. In the same pot, melt the butter until it bubbles, then stir in the flour and cook for a few minutes.

  4. Gradually add the oyster juice and the boiled cream, stirring well.

  5. Season with cayenne pepper and salt, skim the surface, and add the oysters.

  6. Serve immediately 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together8,184 recipes

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

  4. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together4,103 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 124,287 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 bite of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor through the soup.
Flour
Thickens the butter and the liquid into a smooth, lightly body-rich base.
Cream
Adds richness, body and a mild sweetness to the broth.

The step that matters

Adding the oysters and serving without boiling. Oysters toughen and shrink when overcooked, so they should only be added at the end and kept just hot. Boiling the soup after they go in makes them rubbery and can cause the cream to separate.

“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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