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Fricasseed Oysters

A creamy oyster dish simmered with butter, flour, cream, eggs, and spices, finished with breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Margaret Brown · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fricasseed Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Put the oysters, with their juice, into a stewpan on a quick fire; give one boil, drain them, put them into a hot tureen, and set in a warm place.

Make the sauce

  1. Rub the butter, flour, and 3 teaspoonfuls of scalding cream to a fine smooth paste, stir it quickly into the quart of cream in a bright stewpan on a quick fire.

  2. Add the salt and spice, and stir till it no longer thickens.

  3. Now put in the yolks of eggs, well beaten; stir till smooth, strain the whole through a fine sieve upon the oysters.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover evenly with the crumbs and lightly brown in a quick oven.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

694Calories
20 gProtein
24 gFat
98 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 9 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Bay Leaf1 leaf (0.6g)2
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Macenot in our table0
Teanot 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 Margaret Brown. 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (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

Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat, adding richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the cream into a smooth sauce when cooked with the butter.
Cream
Forms the base of the sauce, giving body and a rich, mild flavour.
Yolks of eggs
Thicken the sauce gently and add richness when stirred in without boiling.
Bread crumbs
Form a crust that browns in the oven over the sauced oysters.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat; if the sauce boils after they go in, they can scramble and turn grainy. Straining afterward helps catch any lumps.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, mace, cream, egg, tea, bread):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, mace, cream, egg, tea, bread. 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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