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Oyster Stew

A stew of oysters simmered in their liquor with cream or rich milk, butter, and seasoning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter 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 Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the oysters

  1. Put the oysters and their liquor in a saucepan.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Skim the oysters out of the liquid.

Make the stew and serve

  1. Add the cream or rich milk and seasoning to the saucepan.

  2. Skim the mixture well.

  3. Add butter to taste.

  4. Pour the hot liquor over the oysters.

  5. Serve.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Oyster + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,886 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
Provide the main body and briny flavour, and their texture toughens if they cook too long.
Cream or rich milk
Adds richness and a smooth, silky body to the broth.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a rounded, savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Bring the mixture to a boil. Oysters are delicate protein. Prolonged or vigorous boiling makes them shrink and turn firm and rubbery, so the heat should be brought up only until the liquid boils and the oysters are then removed.

“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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