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 ↓
Oyster Sauce for Turkey
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the oysters
Place the oysters in a pot with their liquor and bring to a boil.
Thicken and finish
In a separate bowl, rub the flour into the butter until well combined.
Add the flour-butter mixture to the boiling oysters, stirring continuously.
Finally, stir in the sweet cream and heat through before serving.
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.
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,184 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Oyster + creamtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,886 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,481 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
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 flavor and body of the sauce.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
- Flour
- Thickens the liquid as its starch swells with heat.
- Sweet cream
- Adds richness and softens the sauce's briny flavor.
The step that matters
Adding the flour-butter mixture. Stirring the flour-butter mixture into the boiling oysters continuously keeps the starch dispersed, preventing lumps and giving an even, smooth thickening as the starch swells with heat.
“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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