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Beefsteak and Oysters Stewed

A stew of beefsteak and oysters cooked with butter, water, flour, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Beefsteak and Oysters Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Brown and stew the beef

  1. In a stew pan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the beefsteak and a little water, browning the meat.

  3. Pour in the ½ cup of water, then add pepper, salt, and the strained oyster liquor.

  4. Cover and let it stew gently over medium heat.

Add the oysters and serve

  1. Roll a piece of butter in flour and add it to the pan along with the oysters.

  2. Stew everything together until the oysters are cooked through.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Oyster + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,663 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Beefsteak
Provides the main meaty body and savory flavor, and browns to add depth.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the meat brown and carrying flavor through the stew.
Oysters
Contribute a briny, savory flavor and a tender texture when cooked gently.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smoother, heavier stew when rolled in butter.

The step that matters

Stew everything together until the oysters are cooked through.. Oysters cook quickly. Overcooking toughens their proteins, making them rubbery and shrinking them, so they should be added late and removed once they are just firm and plump.

“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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