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Spaghetti with Creamed Oysters

Spaghetti coated in a creamy oyster sauce, breaded, fried, and filled with creamed oysters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Spaghetti with Creamed Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spaghetti

  1. Break spaghetti into very small pieces and wash well.

  2. Cook spaghetti in boiling salted water until tender.

Make the mold

  1. In a pan, melt 1 tablespoon of butter, add flour, and cook for a minute.

  2. Stir in sweet milk and season with salt, pepper, and onion juice; cook until thick.

  3. Add cooked spaghetti, 1 tablespoon of butter, and grated cheese; mix well.

  4. Pour mixture into a well-buttered deep pan, cover with buttered paper, and place under a weight.

  5. Once cold, turn out and cut into rounds or squares.

Fry and fill

  1. Dip pieces into bread crumbs and beaten egg, then fry in hot oil.

  2. Cut out the center of each piece and fill with creamed 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Spaghetti
Forms the body of the dish and holds its shape once cooled and pressed.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the sauce and enriches the spaghetti mixture.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the milk into a white sauce that binds the spaghetti together.
Sweet milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it a creamy texture when thickened.
Egg
Binds the bread crumb coating so it adheres and browns when fried.
Grated cheese
Adds savoury flavour and helps bind the spaghetti into the sauce.

The step that matters

Pressing the mixture until fully cold. The starch in the thickened sauce sets as it cools, so the mixture must chill fully under weight before it is cut. Cutting it warm causes the pieces to crumble, and they may also break apart when frying.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, milk, pepper, cheese, bread, egg):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Potatobetter flavor fit
  3. Asparagusbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, pepper, cheese, bread, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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