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Oyster Stew

A creamy stew of oysters cooked in butter, flour, and milk, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Oyster Stew

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Drain and wash the oysters thoroughly.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. When bubbling, whisk in the flour until smooth.

  3. Gradually add the milk and heat the mixture.

Cook and finish

  1. Cook the oysters in the strained liquor until they ruffle.

  2. Combine the oysters with the sauce and cook until done.

  3. Stir in another tablespoon of butter and season with salt and pepper.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Oysters
Provide the main flavour and tender texture, with their briny liquor adding depth to the stew.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the stew.
Flour
Thickens the milk as its starch swells with heat, giving the stew body.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the stew and adds mild sweetness.

The step that matters

Cook the oysters until they just ruffle. Oyster proteins tighten and toughen with prolonged heat, so overcooking makes them rubbery and shrinks them. Heating only until the edges curl keeps them tender and juicy.

“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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