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Oyster Tea

A hot broth made from finely chopped oysters simmered in water, seasoned with coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Oyster and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,886 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Oyster Tea

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the oysters finely.

  2. Combine the chopped oysters and cold water in a saucepan.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat the saucepan over medium heat until the water slowly comes to a boil.

  2. Simmer for 5 minutes.

  3. Strain the liquid into a bowl.

  4. Flavor with coarse sea salt and serve hot with dry toast or a toasted cream cracker, if desired.

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 + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,886 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  3. Oyster + milktop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,933 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Release their briny juices and savory flavor into the water as they cook.
Cold water
Serves as the cooking liquid that extracts flavor from the oysters.

The step that matters

Simmer for 5 minutes. Simmering gently extracts flavor without toughening the oysters. Boiling hard can make the oyster meat rubbery and cloud the broth, so keep the heat low enough for a slow, steady simmer.

“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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