Why it works: Oyster and egg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 4,093 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: egg, milk, wheat, shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
Season the chicken and steam until very tender.
Take it out onto a hot dish and keep warm.
Put the chicken into the liquor in which it was stewed, add a lump of butter the size of an egg, mix a tablespoonful of flour and water smooth, and make a thick gravy; season well with pepper and salt and let it come to a boil.
Have ready a quart of oysters picked over, put them in with the liquor, stir, and as soon as they are cooked, pour all over the chicken.
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. See the original page.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Oyster + eggtop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together4,093 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Oyster + buttertop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together8,175 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Flour + buttertop 6% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together122,858 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + eggtop 8% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together118,511 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
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Flour + eggtop 8% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together104,138 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter share little aroma chemistry, yet 122,858 recipes mention both: they likely 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
- Chicken (in the method)
- Provides the main body of the dish, becoming tender through slow steaming.
- Oysters
- Add briny flavour and a soft, tender texture when cooked briefly in the hot liquor.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, enriching the gravy and carrying flavour.
- Flour
- Thickens the cooking liquor into a smooth, thick gravy.
The step that matters
Cooking the oysters in the liquor. Oysters toughen and shrink if overcooked, so they should be added at the end and removed as soon as they firm and curl at the edges.
“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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