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Creamed Oysters

A dish of oysters cooked in a creamy sauce served on toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Creamed Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Steam the oysters for 4 minutes.

Make the cream base

  1. In a separate dish, mix the flour and butter together.

  2. Add the cream, pepper, and salt to the flour mixture and cook until thick.

Combine and serve

  1. Combine the oysters with the cream mixture and serve on toast.

Make the yolk-thickened sauce

  1. In another pot, bring the oyster juice to a boil with pepper and salt.

  2. Add the dissolved flour and butter, then stir in the beaten egg yolks and cook until thick.

  3. Finish by adding the sherry and serve on toast.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

  5. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Flour and butter 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

Oysters
The main ingredient; brief steaming firms them while keeping them tender.
Flour
Thickens the sauces as its starch swells in hot liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and smooths the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the creamed base.
Egg yolks
Thicken and enrich the sauce as they gently set with heat.
Sherry
Adds aroma and a bright, wine-based flavor at the end.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if the sauce boils after they go in. Keeping the heat gentle and stirring constantly lets them thicken it smoothly.

“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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