Name: Oyster-plant
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon butter; 1 egg yolk; 1 teaspoon coarse sea salt; ¼ teaspoon black pepper; ¼ teaspoon ground mace; Oyster plant (quantity as desired); Flour for rolling; Butter for frying

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Oyster-plant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oyster plant

Wash and scrape the oyster plant, then boil for 1 hour or until tender.
Mash the cooked oyster plant until fine.

Make the mixture

In a bowl, cream the butter and mix in the egg yolk, salt, pepper, and mace.
Combine the creamed mixture with the mashed oyster plant.

Fry the balls

Take spoonfuls of the mixture, roll them in flour, and fry in enough butter to turn the balls.

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.

Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,184 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Egg + oystertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,103 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together12,257 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they 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

Oyster plant: Forms the bulk of the balls and gives them their soft, starchy body.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, and helps the balls brown when fried.
Egg yolk: Binds the mashed mixture so the balls hold their shape.
Flour: Coats the outside so the balls brown and form a light crust when fried.

Swap the mace

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

Parsleyfits better
Nutmegfits better
Capersfits better
Macethe original

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