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Oyster Patties

A savory patty made from oysters, butter, flour, and cream, finished with lemon juice and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Oyster Patties

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Scald the oysters in their own liquor, removing them immediately after boiling.

  2. Cut each large oyster into four pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. In a small saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the flour.

  2. Add the strained oyster liquor and cream or milk, along with salt and pepper; boil while stirring until smooth.

  3. Beat the egg yolks and mix them with the cut oysters into the sauce.

  4. Heat the mixture while stirring until very thick, just before boiling; remove from heat to prevent curdling.

  5. Stir in a few drops of lemon juice and a pinch of nutmeg.

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 + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, 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 flavour and the tender filling of the patties.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries flavour through the roux.
Flour
Thickens the butter and liquid into a smooth white sauce.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and body to the sauce.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as it heats and give it a rich, smooth texture.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture until very thick, just before boiling. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat but curdle and turn grainy if they get too hot. Removing the pan from the heat at the right moment keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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