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Oyster Plant

A dish of boiled and mashed oyster plant mixed with egg, butter, pepper, and salt, formed into balls and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Oyster and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,184 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Oyster Plant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare the oyster plant.

  2. Boil it until tender.

  3. Mash the boiled plant.

Shape and fry

  1. Add the egg, butter, pepper, and salt, and mix well.

  2. Mould the mixture into balls.

  3. Fry the balls in butter.

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

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

  2. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

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

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Oyster + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,663 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Oyster plant
Forms the main body of the balls, providing bulk and a mild, earthy flavour.
Egg
Binds the mashed mixture so the balls hold their shape while frying.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and browns during frying for a golden crust.

The step that matters

Mix the egg into the mashed plant. The egg is the binder. If the mash is too wet or the egg is not mixed in evenly, the balls may crack or fall apart in the pan. Well-mashed, dry-ish plant holds together better.

“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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