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Fricasseed Oysters with Mushrooms

A creamy oyster dish with mushrooms cooked in a fricassee sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Fricasseed Oysters with Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a double boiler, cook the butter and flour together.

  2. Pour in the cream and mushroom liquor, then add the salt and pepper.

  3. Slowly stir in the beaten yolks of the eggs.

Finish and serve

  1. Once the sauce thickens, add the oysters and sliced mushrooms.

  2. Serve in pattie shells or on toast.

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 + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

  3. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 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).

Flour and butter 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 tender texture of the dish.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce and add richness as they set gently with heat.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream into a smooth base for the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and body, giving the sauce a silky mouthfeel.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and a soft, meaty bite to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the yolks into the sauce. Egg yolks scramble if they get too hot too fast. Adding the beaten yolks slowly and stirring constantly, over gentle heat in a double boiler, lets them thicken the sauce smoothly without curdling.

“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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