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Deviled Oysters

A baked oyster dish with butter, flour, oyster liquor, milk, egg yolks, celery, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Deviled Oysters

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 ↓

Deviled Oysters

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the oysters

  1. Wash and drain the oysters, then shake them over the fire until the gills curl.

  2. Drain the oysters, saving the liquor, and chop them finely.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, rub together the butter and flour, then add the oyster liquor and enough milk to make a pint.

  2. Stir the mixture until it boils, then add the chopped oysters, beaten egg yolks, salt, red pepper, lemon juice, and chopped celery.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish, cover it thickly with soft bread crumbs, and bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 10 minutes.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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
Provide the main flavour and texture, becoming tender when cooked through in the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and with the flour forms the base that thickens the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, body-rich sauce when cooked with butter.
Eggs
Egg yolks enrich and thicken the sauce, giving it a creamy texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, forming the bulk of the sauce with the oyster liquor.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks to the boiling sauce. Egg yolks thicken by setting with gentle heat. If the sauce is boiling hard when they go in, they can scramble into lumps, so the yolks should be stirred in carefully and the sauce kept just at a simmer.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, butter, flour, milk, egg, pepper, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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