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Mock Fried Oysters

A dish of steak and oyster mixture shaped like oysters, coated in egg and crumbs, fried in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Oyster and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,103 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Mock Fried Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the round steak and cove oysters.

  2. Mix with the beaten egg, salt, and pepper.

  3. Add the oyster liquor and thicken with cracker crumbs.

  4. Form the mixture into cakes the size of fresh oysters.

Fry

  1. Roll each cake in beaten egg and cracker crumbs.

  2. Fry in hot lard until golden brown.

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. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

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

  2. Oyster + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,663 recipes

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

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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

Round steak
Provides the bulk and meaty body of the cakes.
Cove oysters
Supply the characteristic oyster flavor of the dish.
Egg
Binds the mixture together and helps the coating adhere.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb the liquor to thicken the mixture and form a crisp coating.
Lard
Fries the cakes, conducting heat to brown the crumb coating.

The step that matters

Frying in hot lard until golden brown. If the lard is not hot enough, the cakes absorb grease and turn soggy before the crumb coating sets. Hot fat browns the crumbs quickly, sealing the surface and keeping the inside moist.

“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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