Skip to main content
Main

Oyster-plant

A fried fritter made from mashed oyster plant mixed with butter, egg yolk, salt, pepper, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

  1. Wash and scrape the oyster plant.

  2. Boil the oyster plant for 1 hour or until tender.

  3. Drain the oyster plant.

  4. Mash the oyster plant until fine.

Make the mixture

  1. Cream the butter.

  2. Mix in the egg yolk, salt, pepper, and mace.

  3. Combine the creamed mixture with the mashed oyster plant.

  4. Take spoonfuls of the mixture.

  5. Roll them in flour.

Fry

  1. Fry in enough butter until the balls turn.

  2. Fry until golden brown.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

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

  3. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

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

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. 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 mixture, giving the balls their body and mild flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and browns during frying for flavour and colour.
Egg yolk
Binds the mashed mixture so the spoonfuls hold their shape.
Flour
Coats the balls, helping them brown and form a crisp outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Fry until golden brown. The flour coating and butter brown through the Maillard reaction, which creates flavour and colour. Frying too gently leaves the balls pale and soft, while heat that is too high can scorch the butter before the centre warms through.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

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

More oyster plant recipes

Scalloped 8Fried 6Stew 4Creamed 3Stewed 3 See all 7 →

You might also like

Mock Oyster SoupMock Oyster Soup21 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes