Skip to main content
Main

Fricasseed Oysters

A broth of veal or chicken with ham or salt pork, onion, butter, pepper, and salt, simmered with oysters and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fricasseed Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. In a pot, combine the broth, ham or salt pork, and minced onion.

  2. Boil together with a little pepper, salt, and butter.

Finish and serve

  1. Thicken the mixture and reduce the heat, placing it on the back of the stove.

  2. Add the oysters and chopped parsley, allowing the oysters to cook gently.

  3. Serve once the oysters are cooked through.

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

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

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Ham + oystertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together360 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Main ingredient that cooks gently in the broth and provides the dish's flavor.
Veal or chicken broth
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavor of the whole dish.
Ham or salt pork
Adds savory, salty flavor to the broth as it simmers.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the broth.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce.

The step that matters

Add the oysters and cook gently. Oysters toughen and shrink when overcooked, so they should simmer gently over low heat only until cooked through.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, pepper, butter, oyster, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, pepper, butter, oyster, parsley. 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.

You might also like

Veal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesMock Oyster SoupMock Oyster Soup21 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters6 recipes