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Fried Oysters

Fried oysters coated in crackers and egg, then fried in lard, garnished with lemon slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Fried Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Strain the liquor from the oysters.

  2. Dry them well with a towel.

Make the coating

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs lightly. Mix in the cream.

  2. Season the mixture with pepper and salt.

Fry and serve

  1. Dip the oysters in the crushed crackers, then in the egg mixture, then again in the crackers.

  2. Drop the oysters in boiling lard.

  3. Fry until light brown.

  4. Garnish with slices of lemon.

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

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

  3. Oyster + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,886 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

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

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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
Form the main body of the dish, cooked briefly so they stay tender inside.
Eggs
Bind the cracker coating to the oysters so it adheres during frying.
Cream
Thins the egg mixture so it coats the oysters evenly and adds richness.
Crushed crackers
Form a crisp, browned outer crust when fried.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying and gives the coating a crisp, golden surface.

The step that matters

Drop the oysters in boiling lard. Oysters are delicate and cook quickly. Frying in properly hot fat sets the coating fast so it crisps and seals before the oysters overcook and toughen.

“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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