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Fricasseed Oysters

A dish of oysters cooked in a butter, flour, and cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fricasseed Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Drain the liquor from the oysters and strain ½ pint of it into a porcelain kettle.

  2. Bring the liquor to a boil and add the oysters.

  3. Mix 1 tablespoon of flour into 2 tablespoons of butter until well combined.

  4. When the oysters begin to swell, stir in the butter and flour mixture.

  5. Cook until the oysters are white and plump, then add ½ cup of cream, salt, and pepper.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 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

Oysters
Are the main ingredient, cooked gently in the liquor until they swell, turn white and plump.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the flour so it blends smoothly into the liquor without lumps.
Flour
Thickens the oyster liquor into a light, creamy sauce when cooked into the butter.
Cream
Adds richness and body, softening the flavor of the thickened liquor.

The step that matters

Stirring in the butter and flour mixture. Adding the flour mixture while the liquor is hot and the oysters have just begun to swell lets it disperse and thicken evenly. Added too early or too cold, it can clump, leaving floury lumps in the sauce.

“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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