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Stewed Oysters

A stew of oysters cooked in butter, flour, cream, and seasoned with mace, cayenne, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 14 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 ↓

Stewed Oysters

6 persons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Scald the oysters in their own liquor.

  2. Take them out, beard them, and strain the liquor.

Make the sauce

  1. Put the butter into a stewpan.

  2. Dredge in sufficient flour to dry it up.

  3. Add the oyster-liquor and mace.

  4. Stir it over a sharp fire with a wooden spoon.

  5. When it comes to a boil, add the cream, oysters, and seasoning.

  6. Let all simmer for 1 or 2 minutes, but not longer, or the oysters would harden.

Serve

  1. Serve on a hot dish, and garnish with croutons or toasted sippets of bread.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

138Calories
10 gProtein
8 gFat
6 gCarbs

Counts 4 of 5 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Oyster6 medium (84g)81
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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 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 + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,009 recipes
  3. Lemon + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,315 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Oyster + lemontop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,942 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Oyster + macetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,910 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Are the main ingredient, gently cooked so they stay tender and plump.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky body to the sauce.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the liquid into a sauce as it cooks with the butter.
Butter (in the method)
Provides fat for richness and helps form the flour roux.

The step that matters

Simmer the oysters briefly. Oysters toughen and shrink when overheated, so they should only simmer for a minute or two after the cream goes in.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, cream, mace):

  1. Raspberryfits about as well
  2. Strawberryfits about as well
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, cream, mace. 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.

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