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Oyster Stew

A creamy stew of oysters simmered in milk with butter, salt, pepper, and optional thickening.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. Bring the milk to a boil in a double boiler.

  2. Add the oyster liquor and cleaned oysters.

  3. Cook until the edges of the oysters ruffle.

Season and serve

  1. In a tureen, add salt, pepper, and butter.

  2. Pour the stew into the tureen over the seasoning.

  3. If desired, add flour or powdered crackers for thickening.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 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

Milk
Forms the creamy base of the stew and carries the oyster flavour.
Oysters
Provide the main flavour and become tender when cooked gently until their edges curl.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished stew.
Flour or powdered crackers
Optional thickeners that add body to the stew as it sits.

The step that matters

Cook until the edges of the oysters ruffle. Oysters toughen and shrink quickly when overcooked, so they should be removed from heat as soon as their edges curl. Gentle heat keeps them tender and the milk from curdling.

“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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