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Steamed Chicken with Oysters

A steamed chicken served with a buttery oyster gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Steamed Chicken with Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Steam the chicken

  1. Season and steam the chicken until very tender.

  2. Remove the chicken and place it on a warm dish.

Make the oyster gravy

  1. Add the butter to the steaming liquid.

  2. Mix flour with water until smooth.

  3. Stir the flour mixture into the liquid to make a thick gravy.

  4. Season the gravy with salt and pepper.

  5. Bring the gravy to a boil.

  6. Add the oysters to the gravy.

  7. Stir until the oysters are cooked.

Serve

  1. Pour the oyster gravy over the chicken before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  3. Egg + oystertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

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

  4. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Chicken
Slow steaming makes the meat very tender and gives the gravy its cooking liquid.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the steaming liquid, giving the gravy a smoother mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the steaming liquid into a smooth gravy as its starch swells with heat.
Oysters
Provide a briny, savory flavor and tender texture to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Stir the flour mixture into the liquid. Flour must be mixed smooth in water first and stirred in steadily, otherwise it clumps. Starch thickens the gravy only as it heats, so keep stirring while it comes to a boil.

“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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