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Fricassee of Oysters

A creamy oyster fricassee made with oysters, butter, flour, egg yolks, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Fricassee of Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Put the oysters in their liquor over medium heat until they begin to boil.

  2. Transfer the oysters to a colander, leaving the liquor in the saucepan.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in the saucepan until it bubbles.

  2. Sprinkle in the flour and cook for 1 minute without browning, stirring well.

  3. Add the oyster liquor.

  4. Remove from heat.

  5. Mix in the egg yolks, salt, cayenne pepper, lemon juice, and grated nutmeg, beating well.

  6. Return to low heat to set the eggs without boiling.

  7. Add the oysters.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Oysters
Provide the main flavor and tender texture of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and smooths the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter and liquor into a smooth base for the sauce.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce as they gently set over low heat.
Oyster liquor
Adds briny oyster flavor and liquid to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Return to low heat to set the eggs without boiling. Egg yolks thicken at gentle heat but curdle and turn grainy if they boil. Keeping the heat low and the sauce off a boil lets it thicken smoothly.

“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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