Skip to main content
Main

Spiced Oysters

A preserved oyster dish flavored with vinegar, cloves, mace, allspice, salt, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Leslie · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spiced Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Gather two hundred large fresh oysters, four tablespoonfuls of strong vinegar, a grated nutmeg, three dozen whole cloves, eight blades of whole mace, two teaspoons of salt if the oysters are fresh, two teaspoons of whole allspice, and as much cayenne pepper as will lie on the point of a knife.

  2. Put the oysters with their liquor into a large earthen pitcher.

  3. Add the vinegar and all the other ingredients and stir all well together.

Cook and cool

  1. Set them in the stove, or over a slow fire, keeping them covered.

  2. Take them off the fire several times, and stir them to the bottom.

  3. Cook until they boil completely; do not boil too long.

  4. Pour them directly out of the pitcher into a pan, and set them away to cool.

  5. Do not eat until quite cold, or until the next day.

  6. If you wish to keep them for a week, use a smaller quantity of spice.

  7. Let them be well covered.

Keep through winter

  1. Oysters in the shell may be kept all winter by laying them in a heap in the cellar, with the concave side upwards to hold in the liquor.

  2. Sprinkle them every day with strong salt and water, and then with Indian meal.

  3. Cover them with matting or an old carpet.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

96Calories
10 gProtein
3 gFat
8 gCarbs

Counts 5 of 6 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Oyster6 medium (84g)81
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Allspice1 tsp ground (1.9g)5
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
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 Eliza Leslie. 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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Clove + teatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together181 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Vinegar + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
The main ingredient, which is gently cooked in the spiced vinegar until just firm.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness of the oysters and helps preserve them.
Cloves
Contribute a warm, pungent aroma that flavours the cooking liquor.
Mace
Adds a delicate, warm aroma that complements the oysters.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the cooking liquor.

The step that matters

Cook until they boil completely; do not boil too long. Oysters are delicate protein. Prolonged boiling toughens the flesh and shrinks them, so they should be brought just to a boil and then removed from the heat.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, vinegar, clove, tea, allspice):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, vinegar, clove, tea, allspice. 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

Mock Oyster SoupMock Oyster Soup21 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes