Skip to main content
Main

Oyster Stew

A creamy oyster stew made with milk, butter, flour, and oysters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Oyster Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Drain the oysters in a colander.

  3. Reserve the liquor.

Make the stew

  1. Add a cup of water to the reserved liquor and boil.

  2. Remove any scum.

  3. Once clear, add the oysters and milk.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. Cook until the oysters are plump and the edges begin to curl.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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 and turn plump and tender as they cook.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the stew and gives it body and mild sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the liquid so the stew becomes creamy rather than watery.

The step that matters

Cook until the oysters are plump and the edges begin to curl. Oyster proteins tighten quickly with heat. Past the point of plumping and curling, they turn firm and rubbery, so watch them closely and stop as soon as the edges curl.

“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.

More oyster stew recipes

Dry 4Virginia 4Chicken 3 See all 211 →

You might also like

Mock Oyster SoupMock Oyster Soup21 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes