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Fried Oysters

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 34,122 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fried Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Drain and rinse the oysters, removing all bits of shell.

  2. Crush the crackers until fine like cornmeal.

  3. Season the crushed crackers with salt, pepper, and a little mace.

  4. Roll each oyster in the seasoned cracker mixture.

  5. Heat butter and lard in a frying pan.

  6. Add a layer of oysters to the pan and brown one side.

  7. Turn the oysters over and brown the other side, then serve.

  8. Alternatively, dip oysters in beaten egg yolk, then in cornmeal, and fry in hot lard.

  9. Serve with a garnish of parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Mace + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the mace

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

  1. Tarragonbetter flavor fit
  2. Thymebetter flavor fit
  3. Capersbetter flavor fit
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, pepper, butter, egg, parsley. 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).

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