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Oyster Stew

A creamy stew of oysters simmered in milk with butter, salt, and pepper, served with toasted crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Oyster Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan until it reaches boiling point.

  2. Add the butter, salt, and pepper to the milk.

  3. Heat the oysters in their own liquor and skim off any scum.

  4. Add the oysters to the milk and boil together for one minute or until the oysters curl.

Serve

  1. Serve the stew with toasted crackers.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Milk + oystertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Rich milk
Forms the creamy base of the stew and carries the flavour of the oysters.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the milk.
Oysters
Provide the main flavour and tender texture; they curl and firm when briefly boiled.

The step that matters

Add the oysters to the milk and boil for one minute. Oysters overcook quickly; boiling them only until they curl keeps them tender and plump. Longer cooking toughens the flesh and can make the stew rubbery.

“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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