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Oyster Croquettes

Oyster croquettes are fried balls of oyster mixture coated in cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Oyster Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Stew the oysters in their own liquor for 3 minutes.

  2. Drain and cool the oysters before slicing.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the flour to the butter.

  3. Stir in lemon juice or chopped shallots.

  4. Boil the mixture for 5 minutes.

  5. If the sauce is too thick, thin it with a little oyster liquor.

  6. Add the beaten egg yolks, cayenne, salt, parsley, and lemon juice.

  7. Stir in the oysters and boil for 3 minutes.

  8. Spread the mixture on a platter and let it cool.

Shape, coat and fry

  1. Once cool, shape the mixture into balls, about 1 inch thick, flattened at each end.

  2. Roll the balls in cracker crumbs.

  3. Dip the balls in beaten egg.

  4. Roll the balls again in cracker crumbs.

  5. Heat the fat until very hot.

  6. Fry the croquettes in a basket for 2 minutes.

  7. Serve hot 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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Lemon + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main filling and their briny flavour.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce that binds the filling.
Flour
Thickens the butter into a roux that gives the filling body.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the sauce so it sets firm when cooled.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, browned outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Cooling the mixture before shaping. The sauce must be fully cool and firm before shaping, or the balls will be soft and slump. Egg yolks and flour set as they cool, which holds the shape through the egg and crumb coating and the frying.

“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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