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Oyster Fritters

A batter of oysters, eggs, milk, flour, and seasonings fried into fritters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Oyster and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,103 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Oyster Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Drain and chop the oysters.

  2. Beat the eggs until light.

  3. Add the milk, flour, salt, and pepper to the eggs and beat well.

  4. Stir in the chopped oysters and baking powder.

Fry

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into hot fat.

  2. Lift the fritters from the fat with a skimmer.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set when fried.
Flour
Provides the body that holds the batter together around the oysters.
Baking powder
Releases gas that makes the fritters rise and turn light.
Oysters
Main flavour and texture, folded through the batter as chopped pieces.
Milk
Adds moisture so the batter is loose enough to drop from a spoon.

The step that matters

Drop spoonfuls into hot fat. If the fat is not hot enough, the batter soaks up oil and turns greasy instead of crisping. Hot fat sets the outside quickly so the fritters hold their shape.

“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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