Skip to main content
Main

Deviled Oysters

A savory oyster dish with butter, flour, and seasonings, finished with egg yolk and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Deviled Oysters

Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Deviled Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Boil the oysters in water until plump.

  2. Remove tough muscles from the oysters.

  3. Reserve the liquid.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a pan, then add the flour and stir until well blended.

  2. Gradually pour in enough reserved oyster liquid to make 1 cup, stirring constantly.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

Finish and serve

  1. Season with salt, mustard, cayenne, and lemon juice.

  2. Add the oysters and heat through.

  3. Stir in the egg yolk and the parsley.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
The main ingredient, providing the body and briny flavor of the dish.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, buttery flavor to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a sauce as its starch swells when heated.
Egg yolk
Enriches and further thickens the sauce, adding richness and smoothness.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances its flavor.
Mustard
Adds a sharp, savory bite that cuts through the richness of the sauce.

The step that matters

Gradually pour in the oyster liquid while stirring constantly. Flour clumps if liquid is added all at once. Adding the liquid slowly while stirring lets the starch disperse evenly before the mixture thickens, giving a smooth sauce.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, butter, flour, pepper, lemon, egg, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, butter, flour, pepper, lemon, egg, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesMock Oyster SoupMock Oyster Soup21 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes