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Oysters a LA Poulette

Oysters à la Poulette is a creamy oyster dish with butter, flour, cream, egg yolks, cayenne pepper, and salt.

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 ↓

Oysters a LA Poulette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Put the oysters in a stew-pan and heat until just boiling, then remove from heat.

Make the sauce

  1. In another stew-pan, melt the butter.

  2. Add the flour to the melted butter and stir until it bubbles.

  3. Mix the cream, egg yolks, cayenne, and salt in a bowl.

  4. Slowly pour the cream mixture into the butter and flour, stirring constantly until it boils.

  5. Remove from heat and strain the sauce over the oysters.

Serve

  1. Serve hot.

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

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

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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 ingredient and delicate briny flavour of the dish.
Butter
Forms the fat base of the roux, adding richness and smooth texture to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter and, when cooked briefly, gives the sauce body.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, velvety texture.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce as they cook gently, giving it a silky texture.

The step that matters

Slowly pour the cream mixture into the butter and flour, stirring constantly until it boils. Egg yolks in the cream mixture can scramble if added too fast or left unstirred. Gradual addition with constant stirring tempers them and lets the sauce thicken smoothly.

“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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