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Mock Oysters

A savory pancake made with grated parsnip, eggs, sweet cream, butter, flour, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsnip and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 669 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Mock Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine grated parsnips, eggs, salt, sweet cream, butter, and flour. Mix until well combined.

Cook

  1. Heat a skillet over medium heat and add a little butter.

  2. Pour batter into the skillet to form pancakes.

  3. Fry until golden brown on both sides.

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. Parsnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together669 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Parsnips
Provide the bulk and mild sweetness of the fritters while holding moisture in the batter.
Eggs
Bind the grated parsnips and flour together and help the pancakes set when cooked.
Flour
Absorbs liquid and gives the batter enough body to hold its shape in the skillet.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the batter and aiding gentle browning.
Butter
Adds fat for flavour and helps the pancakes brown golden in the skillet.

The step that matters

Frying the pancakes. Medium heat lets the centres set before the outsides darken. Too hot and the surface browns or burns while the batter inside stays raw and wet.

Swap the parsnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cream, butter, flour):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Parsnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, butter, flour. 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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